guns still firing and her shells still glancing harmlessly from the _Merrimac’s_ armour of rails. The Confederate ship then turned her attention to the _Congress_, shelled her and set her on fire, and then calmly returned to her base none the worse, save for a few dents in her armour. But during the night that followed the _Monitor_ appeared, having slowly made her way down the coast from New York. The next day the _Merrimac_ came out to finish her work of destruction, when the _Monitor_, a tiny ship beside her great opponent, steamed slowly toward the approaching ironclad. A duel memorable in naval annals followed—the first battle between ironclad ships. As the two ships approached each other the _Monitor’s_ turret slowly revolved. The black muzzles of the two guns came to bear on her great antagonist. A double blast from them, and the _Merrimac_ reeled from the shock, but the turning turret had carried the gun muzzles on around, away from the fire of the Confederate ship. As the turret revolved the gun crew, with feverish haste, loaded again, and once more the muzzles faced the _Merrimac_. All this time the Confederate had been raining shells at her little opponent, but they glanced harmlessly from the deck or barely dented the iron walls of the turret. The _Merrimac_ tried to ram, but the _Monitor_ out-manœuvred her and the battle continued. A shell struck the _Monitor’s_ pilot house and the commander was temporarily blinded, but the fight continued. At last, however, the _Merrimac_ withdrew. The fight, perhaps, was a draw, but can more properly be called a victory for the _Monitor_—the first ship to mount a turret, for the _Merrimac_ never again faced a Union ship, and later in the war was sunk by her own men to keep her from falling into the hands of their enemies. [Illustration: A BATTLE CRUISER _A ship carrying the heaviest of guns but lacking the heavy armour of the dreadnaughts. Its speed is greatly superior to that of dreadnaughts._] Following this engagement many ships similar to both the _Monitor_ and the _Merrimac_ were built to take part in the Civil War. And others of other designs were constructed. The war ended, however, with no further important steps having been made in the design of warships. Following the Civil War the Navy of the United States fell into decay for twenty years, but European nations continued the building of ironclad and, later, steelclad warships. In these, many experiments were made with turrets and side armour but little of permanent value resulted. Guns were perfected, it is true, and the old muzzle-loading smooth-bores of Civil War and earlier times were succeeded by breech-loading rifles. These new guns, too, became more and more powerful and more and more accurate. Still, however, the accuracy of gunfire was not greatly improved, although it improved slowly.