On the water the results of the air-ship's attack were destructive almost beyond description, particularly when she stationed herself over the Allied fleet and began firing her four guns right and left, ahead and astern. Every time a shell struck either a battleship or a cruiser, the terrific explosion which resulted either sank the ship in a few minutes, or so far disabled it that it fell an easy prey to the guns and rams of the Russians. As for the torpedo-boats which were struck, they were simply scattered over the water in indistinguishable fragments. Under these conditions maintenance of formation and effective fighting were practically impossible, and the huge iron wedge of the Russian squadron was driven almost without a check through the demoralised ranks of the Allied fleet. The Gut of Elsinore was reached in a little more than three hours after the first sounds of the cannonade were heard. Shortly before this the air-ship had stationed itself about a thousand feet above the water, and a mile from the fortifications. From this position it commenced a brief, rapid cannonade from its smokeless and flameless guns, the effects of which on the fortress are said to have been indescribably awful. Great blocks of steel-sheathed masonry were dislodged from the ramparts and hurled bodily into the sea, carrying with them guns and men to irretrievable destruction. In less than half an hour the once impregnable fortress of Elsinore was little better than a heap of ruins. The last shell blew up the central magazine; the tremendous explosion was heard for miles along the coast, and proved to be the closing act of the briefest but most deadly great naval action in the history of war. The Russian fleet steamed triumphantly past the silenced Cerberus of the Sound with flashing searchlights, blazing rockets, and jubilant salvos of blank cartridge in honour of their really brilliant victory. The losses of the Allied fleet, so far as they are at present known, are distressingly heavy. We have lost the battleships _Neptune_, _Hotspur_, _Anson_, _Superb_, _Black Prince_, and _Rodney_, the armoured cruisers _Narcissus_, _Beatrice_, and _Mersey_, the unarmoured cruisers _Arethusa_, _Barossa_, _Clyde_, _Lais_, _Seagull_, _Grasshopper_, and _Nautilus_, and not less than nineteen torpedo-boats of the first and second classes. The Germans and Danes have lost the battleships _Kaiser Wilhelm_, _Friedrich der Grosse_, _Dantzig_, _Viborg_, and _Funen_, five German and three Danish cruisers, and about a dozen torpedo-boats.