“The average weight of the iron steam vessels is about 6 cwt. per register ton; a wooden one will weigh about 20 cwt. and upwards.”—(See evidence of C. W. Williams, Appendix to Report of the above Committee, p. 43.) See _note_, Appendix No. 5, p. 599. [123] The greatest number of years originally allowed by “Lloyd’s Register” for the classification of any vessel built of wood to remain on the first class, was from four to sixteen years, but seldom more than twelve from the date of construction; they might be renewed, but the original term never exceeded the periods I have named. [124] Captain (now Admiral Sir) W. H. Hall, R.N., in his evidence before Lord Seymour’s (now the Duke of Somerset) Committee on Navy Estimates which sat in 1848, stated (p. 648) that, when he commanded the _Nemesis_, an iron vessel engaged in the Chinese war, she was in one action struck fourteen times by the shot of the enemy; “one shot went in at one side and came out at the other, it went right through the vessel;” there were “no splinters;” “it went through just as if you put your finger through a piece of paper.” “I had,” he added, “a favourable opinion of it” (iron). “Several wooden steamers,” he continues, “were employed upon the same service, and they were invariably obliged to lie up for repairs, whilst I could repair the _Nemesis_ in twenty-four hours and have her always ready for service; indeed, many steamers were obliged to leave the coast of China and go to Bombay for repairs. Repairs which would have taken in a wooden ship several days, would take in ours as many hours only.” Captain E. F. Charlwood, who had served in iron vessels “about four or five years,” stated, in his evidence before the same Committee, that the _Guadaloupe_, which he commanded, had been repeatedly struck by shot, and that “the damage was considerably less than is usually suffered by a wooden vessel,” and that “there was nothing like the number of splinters which are generally forced out by shot sent through a wooden vessel’s side.” He added that the shot went clean through (the holes being plugged by the engineer at the time), and did not otherwise injure the plates or leave a rent or displace any of the rivets.