For a time rams and turrets were regarded as all-important. The extreme in this combination was reached in the French ironclad ram _Taureau_. She was one of the most peculiar warships ever constructed. Seen end on she looked like a tremendous buoy, surmounted by a turret, a funnel, and two masts. A side view showed that an immense bow extended forward as a long ram, and that the turret was situated near the bows. The prow was of bronze and weighed eleven tons, and projected some forty feet under the water. Her deck view represented her as almost pear-shaped, with cylindrical sides, and she had her greatest beam at about the water-line. She was iron-clad for about three feet above the water-line amidships and aft, but the turret and bows had 5 inch armour. Altogether she was about 197 feet long by 48 feet beam, and carried one heavy gun in the turret. A combination of three-decker and ironclad ram was the French warship _Magenta_, constructed in 1862. She had an enormous ram like the _Taureau_ and carried eighty guns, and was barquentine rigged. In England, Captain Coles began in 1859 to urge the construction of vessels of the cupola or turret type, and after the lesson of the famous contests in America between the two ironclads, the British Admiralty decided to try Captain Coles’ boats experimentally. He advocated the cutting down of the three-deckers into one-deck ships, carrying on this one deck one or more turrets or cupolas in which the guns should be placed. These turrets were capable of being turned so that the guns in them could be fired in any direction, and he proposed that a portion of the bulwarks should be hinged in order that they could be let down when it was required to fire the guns, and thus form a sort of additional protection to that portion of the ship’s side above the water-line, while when raised they would add to the seaworthiness of the vessels by keeping the water off their decks. Vessels built according to Captain Coles’ plans, it was contended, would be floating defences “which would be at once thoroughly manageable, impervious to shot, movable with ease, and seaworthy. Nor would they be so monstrous and unsightly to a nautical eye as the inventions of our American cousins. They would be fitted with masts and yards, having the one peculiarity of being made of one uniform size, so that ships of all classes abroad could be furnished at depots, in case of accident, or ships meeting each other could exchange with or supply their comrades,” to quote from one of the descriptions published at the time. Another advantage was that the conversion of heavy frigates and line-of-battle ships into iron-plated vessels, fitted with the Coles shield, could be effected at a comparatively moderate cost. Experiments with the cupola were tried on the _Trusty_ and _Hazard_ with success. The standardisation of masts and rigging was another point on which Captain Coles laid stress. The cupola system had so