In this manner the unarmored ends above the protective deck are not merely packed to a large extent with water-excluding substances when the vessel is fully laden, but they are minutely subdivided into separate compartments, which can only be thrown into communication with one another by means of very extensive injuries to the partitions. “In all the modern French ships, as well as in the _Admiral_ class, a light steel superstructure of considerable height is built above the level of the belt-deck; the living quarters of the crew and the stations of the auxiliary armament are contained within this light erection, which also surrounds the armored communications from the barbette towers to the magazines. In this manner a ship with a small height of armored freeboard is converted into a high-sided ship for all purposes of ordinary navigation, sea-worthiness, and habitability; while spaces are provided in which a more or less considerable number of light guns can be fought concurrently with the heavy guns placed in the armor-protected stations. The radical difference, therefore, between the French ships and the _Admiral_ class, independently of other considerations than the armor protection of the water-line, consists in the omission of the side armor at the extremities, and the use instead of the side armor of the strong under-water deck with cellular subdivision and other arrangements for adding to the protection and securing the buoyancy of the spaces at the ends, into which water may find access through the thin sides if they are shot through and seriously damaged in action. If the completely belted French ship has to fight a vessel of the _Admiral_ class, the latter has obviously the greater chance of damage to the narrow strips of the sides lying above the under-water deck before and abaft the ends of the belt. If the action takes place in smooth water, when the ships are neither rolling nor pitching, but are simply in motion, the chances of hitting these narrow strips in the water-line region might not be very great; but it must be admitted that even the lightest guns would penetrate the thin sides of the English ships and admit more or less considerable quantities of water into the ends. If, on the other hand, the fight takes place in a sea-way, with the ships lolling and pitching, then the relative importance of penetration of these narrow’ strips of the ends of the English ships becomes much less, because the belt armor of the French ships will be brought out of water for a considerable length of the bow and the stern by a very moderate angle of pitching, or by the passage of a comparatively low wave, and because rolling motion of the ships will alternately immerse or emerge the belt armor, even at the midships part, where it has its greatest thickness. In fact, as I have more than once said publicly, it is clearly an