The Russians were the first to solve the problem of an armored cruiser in which great speed could be combined with effective protection against the guns of a majority of the high-sea ships then afloat. The _General Admiral_, launched in 1873, and the best known of this class, is built of iron, wood sheathed under water, and coppered. She is 285 feet 9 inches in length, 48 feet 2 inches in beam, and with 21 feet mean draught has 4438 tons displacement. She was designed to steam 13 knots, carry 1000 tons of fuel, and have a coal endurance of 5900 miles at 10 knots; the battery and belt are armored with six-inch plates; the belt is seven feet wide at the water-line, and has, level with its upper edge, a highly curved deck of iron. The type proved so successful that it has been reproduced and improved in most of the great navies. The _Catherine II._, _Tchesme_, and the _Sinope_ are the most powerful battle-ships of the Russian fleet. The first and second were launched in May, 1886, the third in June, 1887; they are built of iron and steel (wood sheathed and coppered), have ram bows, and are of the following dimensions: length 339 feet, beam 69 feet, mean draught 26.5 feet, displacement 10,181 tons. They are encircled by a belt of compound armor twelve to eighteen inches thick, and have a complete 3-inch protective deck. Within a 14-inch armored pear-shaped redoubt six 12-inch rifles are pair-mounted on Moncrieff disappearing barbette carriages; seven 6-inch guns are carried on the gun-deck—six in broadside and one on a shifting pivot mount—and the secondary battery is composed of seven Hotchkiss revolving cannon and seven torpedo-tubes. The engines of the _Catherine II._ and the _Tchesme_ are of the vertical compound three-cylinder type, and are to develop 11,000 horse-power and 16 knots; the engines of the _Sinope_ are of the triple-expansion type, and are to develop 10,000 horse-power with natural, and 13,000 with forced, draught. The cost of each vessel will be about $4,500,000. The second ship of the _Emperor Alexander II._ type, now building at St. Petersburg by the Franco-Russian Company, and named the _Nicholas the First_, is to be 8440 tons in displacement, 327 feet in length, 67 feet in beam, and have 25.5 feet draught. These ships carry a complete belt of steel armor six to fourteen inches thick and nine feet wide, and a curved steel deck, three inches thick, covers their under-water bodies. The battery is to consist of two 12-inch guns, mounted in a pear-shaped barbette tower forward; in the broadside there are to be four 9-inch, eight 6-inch, and four 3.5-inch rifles, together with a number of Hotchkiss guns. The barbette tower has steel armor, ten inches thick, and the usual torpedo-tubes are to be supplied. The estimated horse-power is 8000 and the speed 16 knots.