The _Devastation_ carries two guns in each of her turrets, placed side by side, each weighing thirty-five tons. The turrets, directly the guns have been fired, can be wheeled rapidly round, thus turning the exposed parts away from the enemy. Ships such as the _Devastation_, the _Thunderer_, and the _Fury_ do not, at first sight, strike one as particularly well adapted for rough weather, to put it in the mildest phrase. Nevertheless, the _Devastation_ has been fairly well tested in this way, having encountered some pretty rough weather, and, it is affirmed, behaved satisfactorily. The great danger about all ships of this class is that they may not rise to the seas, but that the waves, breaking over them, may press them down and founder them. The _Thunderer_ has been known to have her forecastle, which is somewhat lower than that of the _Devastation_, completely submerged, and this, too, when no very high sea was running. These ships are designed, not for home service and coast defence merely, but for general action in mid-ocean. To attempt to describe even a single specimen of each type of modern war-ships would to a certainty weary the reader, for to any but an expert there would inevitably be a sense of repetition in the perusal of such a narrative. But in order to place before our readers something like an approximate idea, at any rate, of the present state of our navy, we shall examine briefly one other first-class ironclad, the _Inflexible_, which may be regarded as a leading example of ironclad ships, and, at the time of writing, as one of the highest achievements of modern naval architecture. The _Inflexible_ is the vast size of 11,400 tons burden, her horse-power being 8000. The length is 320 feet, her armour-plating from 16 to 24 inches thick, with an inner lining of wood from 17 to 25 inches in thickness. She is divided into 135 compartments, and her engines are placed at such a distance from each other that should one be disabled from any cause the other would still be in working order. The chief characteristic of the _Inflexible_ is the position of the turrets. The majority of ships of this description have their turrets in the middle line, from which it results that only one half of their guns can be directed on an enemy, whether ahead or astern. The _Inflexible_ has her turrets on each side--the fore-turret on the port-side, the after-turret on the starboard. She can thus use the whole of her guns against an enemy _at the same time_, whether it be ahead or astern.