Magellanes 6,932 0 17.0 Steel Buenos Aires 5,195 0 14.0 Steel Montevideo 5,096 0 14.5 Steel Alfonso XII 5,063 0 15.0 Steel Leon XIII 4,687 0 15.0 Steel Satrustegui 4,638 0 15.0 Steel Alfonso XIII 4,381 0 16.0 Steel Maria Cristina 4,381 0 16.0 Steel Luzon 4,252 0 13.0 Steel Mindanao 4,195 0 13.5 Steel Isla de Panay 3,636 0 13.5 Steel Cataluna 3,488 0 14.0 Steel City of Cadiz 3,084 0 13.5 Steel INTEREST IN THE WORKING OF MODERN WAR SHIPS. The puzzle that was troubling every naval authority as well as every statesman in the civilized world, at the outbreak of the war between the United States and Spain, was what would be the results of a conflict at sea between the floating fortresses which now serve as battle-ships. Since navies reached their modern form there had been no war in which the test of the battle-ship was complete. Lessons might be learned and opinions formed and prophesies made from the action of battle-ships in the war between China and Japan, the war between Chili and Peru, and from the disasters which had overtaken the Maine in the harbor of Havana and the Victoria in her collision with the Camperdown, as well as the wreck of the Reina Regente and others. But in all these, combine the information as one might, there was insufficient testimony to prove what would happen if two powers of nearly equal strength were to meet for a fight to a finish. Whatever was uncertain, it was known at least that there would be no more sea fights like those of the last century and the first half of this, when three-deck frigates and seventy-four-gun men-of-war were lashed together, while their crews fought with small arms and cutlasses for hours. Those were the days when "hearts of oak" and "the wooden walls of England" made what romance there was in naval warfare, and the ships of the young United States won respect on every sea. In the fights of those days the vessels would float till they were shot to pieces, and with the stimulus of close fighting the men were ready to brave any odds in boarding an enemy's craft. It was well understood that the changed conditions would make very different battles between the fighting machines of to-day.