bridges, which system has been proved by the most elaborate and careful experiments to be that which best combines lightness and strength in wrought-iron structures of tubular cross-section. The _Warrior’s_ system, wanting, as it does, an inner skin of iron--except in a few places, such as under the engines and boilers--is not in accordance with the cellular system, and is inferior to it in strength. As regards safety, also, no comparison can be made between the system of the _Warrior_ and that of the _Bellerophon_. If the bottom plating is penetrated, in most places the water must enter the _Warrior’s_ hold, and she must depend for safety entirely on the efficiency of her watertight bulkheads. If the _Bellerophon’s_ bottom is broken through, no danger of this kind is run. The water cannot enter the hold until the inner bottom is broken through, and this inner bottom is not likely to be damaged by an ordinary accident, seeing that it is two or three feet distant from the outer bottom. Should some exceptional accident occur by which the inner bottom is penetrated, the _Bellerophon_ would still have her watertight bulkheads to depend on, being, in fact, under these circumstances in a position similar to that occupied by the _Warrior_ whenever her bottom plating is broken through; while an accident which would prove fatal to the _Warrior_ might leave the _Bellerophon_ free from danger so long as the inner bottom remained intact.” As to be related later, the _Vanguard_ disaster tended to contravert this optimism--but of that further on. The point of present interest is the recognition and establishment of a principle which, however commonplace to-day, was in those days a complete novelty and a special feature of the iron ship as a peculiar war entity. Equally of interest, in some ways more so, are the following anticipations of torpedo possibilities. The torpedo is such a familiar thing to-day that it is hard to throw ourselves back into the point of view necessary to appreciate the prophetic instincts of the man who created the first vessels which can really be called “battleships.”