BY SIR EDWARD J. REED. We have now to pass under review that vast array of naval constructions which the Continental navies of Europe offer to our observation. It is not at all surprising that the introduction of steam-engines, of iron and steel hulls, and of armor-plating has been attended throughout Europe by even greater diversity of thought and practice than has characterized our naval progress—“our progress” here signifying that of both the United States and Great Britain. And this may, I think, truthfully be said without in any degree neglecting the striking originality of the American Monitors, to which I endeavored to do justice. As regards two of the three great changes just adverted to, the only differences of opinion that have arisen have been in the nature of competitions rather than of conflicts. No one, so far as I am aware, has ever proposed to revert to sail-power or to wooden hulls in important ships-of-war. On the contrary, the powers have been in continual competition in the effort to reduce the weights of the hulls of war-ships (apart from armor) by the extended use, first of iron, and afterwards of steel, and to apply the savings of weight thus effected to the development of engine-power, speed, and steaming endurance. On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that the development of armor has been pursued with less constancy and less earnestness, the result being that marked contrasts are exhibited by European navies. It may be said, with little or no qualification, that all other European naval powers followed, in the first place, the example set by the late Emperor Napoleon III., in _La Gloire_, by covering the whole of the exposed part of the war-ship’s hull with armor-plating. All the early iron-clads of Russia, Italy, Austria, and Germany were protected from stem to stern, and from a few feet below water to the upper deck. England did the same in the cases of a few ships, although she began, as we saw before, with the _Warrior_ type, in which the armor was limited to the central part of the ship. But the system of completely covering the exposed ship with armor has now entirely and properly passed away from European practice, and has been succeeded by varied arrangements of armor.