From which it would appear that the _Duilio_ of 11,000 tons derives from this element of stability only about as much as the _Ajax_ of 8500 tons derives from it, and only about three-fourths of that which the _Inflexible_ of 11,400 had allowed to her. There are other circumstances, of course, which enter into the stability of these ships, but nothing which I know of or can imagine to enable the _Duilio_ to compare much more favorably in this respect with the other vessels, deficient as they themselves are. All this applies, of course, solely to the ability of these ships to depend upon their armored citadels for safety in war: in peace they are all safe enough as regards stability, because they have their unarmored ends to add largely to it, although I should doubt if the _Duilio_ is greatly over-endowed with stability even with her long unarmored ends intact. [Illustration: THE “DUILIO.”] I now come to a series of ships in which the question of the amount of their armored stability does not arise, because they have no armored stability at all. For some reason or other Lloyds, in their _Universal Register_, following bad examples, have arrayed the _Italia_ and her successors under the heading of “Sea-going Armor-clads.” These ships are nothing of the kind, in any reasonable sense of the word, but are, as ships, wholly unarmored, although carrying elevated armored towers, and some armor in other places. Mr. King (in his work previously referred to) puts the facts correctly when he says: “The armor is only used” (in the form of a curved deck, be it understood) “to keep out shot and shell from the engines and boilers, the magazines, shell-room spaces, and the channels leading therefrom to the upper deck, and to protect the guns in the casemate when not elevated above the battery, and the gunners employed in firing them. But all other parts of the ship above the armored deck” (which is below water, be it said), “all the guns not in the casemate, and all persons out of the casemate, and not below the armored deck, will be exposed to the enemy’s projectiles.”