fully protected as to be in no danger had better stop playing sailor or soldier, and take to the woods before the fighting begins. In addition to the heavy ordnance, the French mount a number of lighter pieces, and carry powerful secondary batteries of rapid fire and machine-guns; and sufficient armor defence is given by a belt at the water-line, an armored deck, and a glacis and parapet for the barbette. It is quite probable that these purely military terms may seem odd when applied to ships, but they are the only ones which can exactly explain what is meant, and, after all, they show how much a battle-ship has become a floating, transferable fortress. The Italians were not altogether satisfied with the _Duilio_, as she lacked the high speed and coal endurance which they deem essential in any Mediterranean naval policy; so in 1878 they adopted an idea advanced some years before in England, and startled the world with the _Italia_ type. In this ship protection is given, not by vertical or side armor, but by an armored deck, between which and the deck above there is a very minute subdivision of the water-line space. The system is based upon the theory that the power to float must be obtained, not by keeping our projectiles, but by so localizing their effect as to make any penetration practically harmless. The _Italia’s_ heavy guns are carried in a central armored redoubt, at a height of thirty-three feet above the water-line, and with their machinery and fittings weigh over two thousand tons. This fact shows the magnitude of the task accepted by her designer, for it means that a load nearly equal to the total weight of a first-class line-of-battle ship of the last century has to be sustained at this great elevation. Besides the main battery of four 106-ton guns, eighteen six-inch breech-loading guns are carried—twelve in broadside on the upper battery deck, four in the superstructure before and abaft the redoubt, and two under cover at the extremities of the spar-deck. The redoubt is protected by seventeen inches of compound iron, inclined twenty-four degrees from the vertical; and the complete armored deck, which is nearly three inches thick, dips forward to strengthen the ram, curves aft to cover the steering gear, and, at the ship’s sides, extends six feet below the water-line.