The ingenuity and new means of offence were, however, by no means confined to the Russians, for a Mr. Macintosh, after the failure of the first bombardment of Sebastopol, evolved a system of attacking fortifications with a long hose supported by floats, through which naptha was to be pumped. Being set alight with some potassium, the fort attacked would be immediately smoked out. Experiments at Portsmouth having proved that this system was “simple, certain and cheap,” Mr. Macintosh proceeded to the Crimea with his invention at his own expense. He was eventually given £1000 towards his expenses, but no attempt was made to employ the system. It is by no means clear how the necessary potassium was to be got into the water at the requisite spot. The same war also produced the fire-shell of the British Captain Norton. This appears to have been a resurrection of the old idea of Greek fire. It could be used from a rifle or from a shell-gun, and like the previous invention “rendered war impossible,” and again like the previous invention does not appear to have ever materialised into practice. On the practical side more results were achieved. The Lancaster gun which fired an oval shot was actually used with success in the war. From it the rifled gun presently emerged. There also emerged the then amateur invention of one Warry, who invented a new type of gun capable of firing sixteen to eighteen rounds per minute. The idea of wire wound guns was also apparent, and Mr. Armstrong[84] (as he then was), suggested the idea of percussion shell. It is interesting to note that these last were received with extreme dissatisfaction in the Navy on the grounds that they might go off at the wrong time. Of the Crimean War, however, it may be said that though it was not noted for naval actions, it was probably the most important war in its indirect results on the Navy that ever took place. It brought in the armoured ship, the rifled gun, and what was ultimately to develop into the torpedo. It saw the crude birth of “blockade mines” and rapid fire guns; everyone of them inventions that, judging by the slow progress of steam, would--failing war to necessitate swift development--have been still in the experimental stage even to-day. In our own times war having ever been a nearer possibility than in the 1850 era, peace progress has always been more rapid, and no invention of practical value ever failed to secure full tests. Yet there were not wanting those who prophesied that the Dreadnoughts of to-day merely reproduced in another form the 120 screw ships of the line of sixty years ago; and that the next great naval war might well bring about changes every whit as drastic as any that the Crimean War caused to come into being.