I have discussed this question at some length because it is one of primary consideration in the design of important armored ships, and because the abandonment of a long belt of armor is also one of the few features of construction respecting which the designers of the Continent have steadfastly refrained from following the example set by the Admiralty Office at Whitehall from the years 1870 to 1885. It will complete the consideration of this branch of the subject to say that there are numerous ships of the iron-clad type in foreign navies in which the armor (justifiably, as has just been shown) stops somewhat short of the ends, but very few indeed in which the length of the unarmored parts exceeds that of the armored. Among the last named may be mentioned a very questionable class of vessels (_Sachsen_ type) in the German navy, and a much smaller sea-going vessel belonging to the Argentine Republic, named the _Almirante Brown_, which is a well-designed vessel in other respects, but which, on account of her long defenceless bow and stern, would do better to avoid than to fight an enemy.[23] Having now dealt with the primary question of the defence of ships by means of armor-belts, we come to the greater or less defence bestowed upon them above water. The course taken by the French designers, when the increased thickness of armor made it impossible to repeat the complete protection adopted in _La Gloire_ and her compeers, was in some few cases that of belting the ship with armor, and giving great “tumble home” to the sides above water, excepting at the central armored battery, thus allowing that battery to project, and its guns to fire directly ahead and astern, past the inwardly inclined sides. This system has been strikingly carried out in the two sister ships _Courbet_ and _Dévastation_, the former of which is shown, stem on, in the cut on page 75, which is engraved from a photograph taken after her launch, and before she began to receive her armor-plating. A representation of the sister vessel, _Dévastation_ (forming one of the series of engravings given in this chapter from drawings specially executed for the purpose by Chevalier De Martino), forms our illustration on page 73. But generally in the French navy, and in nearly all but its earliest ships, direct head and stern fire has been obtained by means of elevated and projecting towers, armor-plated to a sufficient height to protect the gun machinery, but with the guns themselves unprotected, and firing _en barbette_. In the case of the two ships _Dévastation_ and _Courbet_ the main-deck projecting battery carries four guns, each commanding a full quadrant of a circle. The barbette batteries, standing up above the upper deck, carry a powerful gun on each side of the ship, with great range of fire. [Illustration: THE “DEVASTATION:” FRENCH ARMORED SHIP OF THE FIRST CLASS.]