The twin-screw gun-boat No. 1 is the prototype of a class that now include three vessels, and a very promising nucleus it is for a fleet to which the defence of the country’s coast must mainly be intrusted. The ship is to be built of steel, with a three and a half inch complete water-tight deck, so arched as to have a spring of about three feet in its greatest width, and a crown that will nearly reach the water-line level. There is no double bottom, but the number of water-tight compartments is very great, and coffer-dams surround the engine and fire-room hatches, and are carried to a height of eighteen inches above the main deck. The complement numbers 150, and the rig is that of a three-masted schooner, with a sail area of 4400 square feet. The machinery is estimated to indicate 2200 horse-power with natural draft, and 3300 with forced draft, and consists of two independent compound engines placed in separate compartments. The speed is given as sixteen knots, but it is probable this rate will be considerably exceeded. The main battery consists of six 6-inch guns, the secondary of two 57-millimetre rapid-fire guns, two 37-millimetre revolving cannons, and one short Gatling. Four of the 6-inch guns are mounted on the poop and forecastle—two forward, two aft—and the other pieces of this calibre are carried on sponsons amidships, so as to have a large arc of fire about the beam. The elevated guns are eighteen feet above the low-water line, the centre ones ten feet, and all are mounted on central pivots and fitted with protective shields. The torpedo armament is of great relative importance; of the eight tubes supplied, the stem and stern ones are fixed and fitted with under-water discharge, while the other six can be trained, and are distributed four forward and two aft. In gun-boat No. 2 the machinery is to develop 900 horse-power with natural, and 1350 with forced, draft; the engines, boilers, and magazines are placed beneath a steel deck three-eighths of an inch thick, which amidships is twenty-seven inches below the water-line at the edge and eight inches above at the crown. The armament consists of four 6-inch sponson-mounted guns, two 47-millimetre guns, two 37-millimetre revolving cannons, and one short Gatling. She is barkentine rigged, with a plain sail area of 4480 square feet, and has a slightly ram-shaped, cast-steel stem. The complement is 100. The pneumatic-gun cruiser is to be armed with three of Zalinski’s pneumatic dynamite guns of 10½-inch calibre, each of which is to throw a shell containing 200 pounds of high explosives for a distance of one mile, and to be capable of being discharged at least once in two minutes. The guaranteed speed is twenty knots.