The battle-ship designed at the Navy Department has very different qualities, if the dimensions already published be correct. To possess a metacentric height of three feet she would require a water-line coefficient of 0.753, and a midship-section coefficient of 0.89 to 0.90, which is a good proportion for such a vessel. Not only in sea-going qualities does the American design seem to be superior, but her battery is far more powerful and better disposed in every way, while her speed and endurance are equally as great as the plan recommended. Mr. John has adopted the _échelon_ arrangement of heavy guns, a disposition which both the English and Italian governments have, after long trial, discarded in their latest ships. When the first sketches of a design are made, this arrangement of guns is theoretically perfect, as it is supposed to give quite as much power of fire ahead and astern as on each broadside; but when the design is developed and practically tested, it is found that too much of the ship’s efficiency in other respects is sacrificed, that the powerful end fire is not attained, and that the broadside is greatly weakened, owing to the obstructed arcs of fire. Besides this, the guns, being placed at some distance from the midship line, have less accurate fire in rolling, and the ship’s propensities to roll are encouraged and are greater than would be the case if the guns were placed on the midship line. It is also found that the blast from the heavy guns is destructive to superstructures and other fittings on the upper deck. The Italians, indeed, have placed stout ventilating shafts on their _Italia_ and _Lepanto_ to prevent the rearmost pair of heavy guns from being trained within twenty degrees of the fore and aft line. This is done so that the blast from these guns will not prostrate the gunners attending the other pair, notwithstanding the fact that those men are under the armor cover. The _Duilio’s_ forward smoke-pipe is placed entirely on the port side of the fore and aft line, in order to permit of one pair of turret guns firing ahead. The upper-deck, 6-inch, central-pivot guns of the _Andrea Doria_ class are now to be placed wholly within the superstructure, in order to be out of danger from the blast of the heavy guns when the latter are fired near the line of keel, and the same change would have to be made with the upper-deck, 6-inch guns in the Barrow design.