much to recommend it that Sir William Armstrong wrote to the _Times_ endorsing it as solving the problem of working the heaviest guns. Could shipbuilding have stood still at that period the system would have been an unqualified success, but the rivalry between armour-makers and gunmakers was so intense that no sooner did an armour-plate maker produce a plate impenetrable to existing guns and projectiles than the gunmakers set to work to produce a gun and projectile which should smash the armour plate. [Illustration: _Photo. G. West & Son._ H.M.S. “DEVASTATION.”] [Illustration: _Photo. G. West & Son._ H.M.S. “THUNDERER.”] The steam corvette _Pallas_, launched at Woolwich in 1865, differed materially from any other vessel hitherto constructed. She was originally intended to be built of iron, but as the necessary machinery was not then in existence at Woolwich, she was constructed of wood and iron-plated, and had a belt of armour to protect the most important parts. She was rigged as a ship so that she might keep at sea for a considerable time, the sails enabling her to economise her fuel. In order to increase her seaworthiness she was made high above the water, her fixed bulwarks being eighteen feet above the water-level. She was also designed to be able to fight end on. The engines were of 600 horse-power, and, to counteract the enormous strains the screw propeller was expected to impose, a new system of stern construction was adopted whereby the sternposts and deadwood were connected with the sides by internal iron bulkheads, decks, and flats, and external brass castings. The _Pallas_ was 2372 tons burden, and was intended to be a faster vessel than any wooden frigate in the Navy. The fastest wooden frigate afloat and complete then was the _Mersey_, which once got up to 13¹⁄₄ knots an hour. The _Pallas_ was provided with Mr. Reid’s new bow, known as the =[U]= bow from its shape. This bow gave considerable buoyancy where it was needed to support the ram, but its shape created a wave forward and thus militated against the vessel’s speed. H.M.S. _Minotaur_, launched in 1865, was almost the last of the great sailing warships carrying a ram and having powerful auxiliary machinery. She had five square-rigged masts, and all five topsails were on the divided principle. The German ironclad _Prinz Hendrick_, built by Laird Brothers of Birkenhead, and launched in October 1866, was barque-rigged, and was fitted with Captain Coles’ tripod masts. She was also fitted with revolving turrets, hinged bulwarks, and a sliding funnel.