================+=====+======+======+=========+========+=====+====== Cerberus | .428| .369 | .797 | .059 | .077 | .036| .031 Hotspur | .430| .309 | .739 | .030 | .133 | .069| .029 Glatton | .320| .352 | .672 | .068 | .114 | .112| .034 Cyclops | .411| .331 | .742 | .068 | .076 | .082| .032 Javary | .288| .373 | .661 | .068 | .106 | .051| .114 Popoff | .291| .384 | .675 | .078 | .150 | .047| .050 Onondaga | .624| .117 | .741 | .059 | .102 | .068| .130 Tonnerre | .359| .371 | .730 | .036 | .118 | .052| .064 ----------------+-----+------+------+---------+--------+-----+------ Although these tables are too limited to permit of a just appreciation of the development of iron-clad architecture, much profit may be derived from them. For example: it is known that the French have been slow in adopting iron hulls, and at the first glance many are inclined to sneer at their backwardness, but an inspection of the table will show that their caution was well founded. In weight of hull they never passed 48 per cent, while the English with their iron construction did not reach that point as a _minimum_ until the Hercules was designed. Whilst, however, the French had reached the lowest possible limits with wood (between 44 and 48 per cent), the English by constant improvement steadily reduced the weight of their iron hulls from 52 per cent in the Warrior to 44 in the Audacious. The gradual perfection of steel manufacture coming to their assistance permitted the English by partially introducing it to reduce the weight to 40 per cent. At this point the French take up the iron hull and with the Devastation reach 39 per cent. The Austrians, appreciating the value of the saving in weight of hull, build an all-steel hull in the Tegetthoff, bringing the weight to its present minimum of 34 per cent. Since iron manufacture has never been in so advanced a state in France as in England, it is safe to state that had the Gloire’s hull been of iron, it would have absorbed at least 52 per cent of the displacement, a very serious matter in the first stages of iron-clad building. The wisdom of choosing a wooden hull is then sufficiently shown in this one point of saving 6 per cent in weight, and as the French had commenced with a complete armored side, they could not build in iron until the weight of that system was reduced to that of wood. This necessity was all the more urgent as the percentage of armor increased more rapidly than that of hull diminished. From the Gloire to the Richelieu and from the Warrior to the Hercules the regularity of increase is remarkable, being about the same in both countries, and yet an examination of the weight of hull and armor together shows the French to have the advantage. A strictly true comparison of percentages of armor, however, would