It would be superfluous to describe the general appearance of the _Queen Elizabeth_ in words, the photograph opposite presenting it better than the most detailed description: but it may be fairly said that while in picturesque beauty modern battleships cannot compete with the masterpieces of "the days of wood and hemp", there is yet an appearance of power, proportion, and impressiveness about them which forms a combination that may be almost called a beauty in itself. In the same way we may compare the plain, severe beauty of the Parthenon at Athens with the elaborately carved, gilded, and painted workmanship of a Japanese temple. Both are attractive to the eye in their own peculiar and far differing ways. In the old wooden ships an appreciable proportion of their cost went in decoration alone, but out of the £2,400,000 expended on the "_Lizzie_" such expenditure may be set down practically as _nil_. A plain slate-coloured coat of paint, extending from truck to water-line, is all the painter has had to do with her external appearance. The turrets in which the _Queen Elizabeth's_ big guns are carried are four in number, and are placed on the centre line of the ship--two forward and two aft. Each turret contains a pair of guns, and the two innermost turrets are perched up on a species of protected tower or pedestal in such a way that they can fire directly over the foremost and aftermost turrets. By this arrangement four guns can be discharged dead ahead, four astern, and the whole eight on either broadside. We have been some time evolving this arrangement of turrets--in point of fact some foreign "Dreadnoughts" were the first to adopt it. Our original _Dreadnought_ had five turrets, three on the centre line of the ship and one on either broadside. The same arrangement was carried out in the _Bellerophon_ and _St. Vincent_ classes, which followed her, but in the _Colossus_ class, which succeeded them, the position of the five turrets was altered. There was one right forward on the centre line of the ship, then one on the port side, and farther aft another on the starboard side. In fact, these two turrets were arranged _en echelon_, just as they were in the earlier _Colossus_ and other ships. The fourth and fifth turrets were on the centre line, and the fourth was able to fire over the fifth, just as the second can fire over the first in the _Queen Elizabeth_. In the _Orion_ class, which came next, the same arrangement as in the _Queen Elizabeth_ was followed, but as there was an additional turret it was placed by itself right amidships. No change in this respect was made in the _King Georges_.