The _Naniwa-Kan_, a steel cruiser, 300 feet in length and 46 feet in beam, has on an extreme draught of 19 feet 6 inches a displacement of 3730 tons; the steel hull is fitted with a double bottom under the engines and boilers, and has a strong protective deck, two to three inches thick, which extends from the ram to the stern-post, and carries its edges four feet below, and its crown one inch above, the load water-line. There are ten complete transverse and several partial water-tight bulkheads; the space between the protective and the main deck is minutely subdivided into compartments, which are utilized as coal-bunkers, store-rooms, chain-lockers, and torpedo-rooms; the conning-tower is protected by two inches of steel armor; and two ammunition hoists, three inches thick, lead from the shell-rooms to the loading towers at the breech of the two heavy guns. The armament consists of two 10-inch 28-ton breech-loading rifles on central pivots, with 2-inch steel screens, and of six 6-inch guns, with a secondary battery of two 6-pounder rapid fire, eight 1-inch Nordenfeldt, four Gardner guns, and four above-water torpedo tubes. The engines are of the horizontal compound type, situated in two compartments, one abaft the other, and there are six single-ended locomotive three-furnace boilers in two separate compartments, with athwartship fire-rooms; the indicated horse-power under a forced draft was 7650, and the maximum speed 18.9 knots. This has since been exceeded. The _Mersey_ and her class—the _Severn_, _Thames_, and _Forth_—like the _Naniwa_ are unarmored steel cruisers, with a complete protective deck, the horizontal portion of which is one foot above, and the inclined three inches below, the water-line. The main battery of these ships consists of two 8-inch guns, mounted on central pivots forward and abaft a covered deck which carries ten 6-inch guns; the secondary battery has ten 1-inch Nordenfeldt and two Gardner machine guns, and there are six above-water torpedo-tubes in broadside. “The development of the _Mersey_ design has resulted in the new English ‘belted cruisers,’ in which, to satisfy the demand for a water-line belt of armor, the displacement has been increased to 5000 tons.”