As was said before, let no mistake be made about this. It is a matter of the greatest moment when our ship of 11,500 tons is conceded to be a match for one of 15,000 tons in the best navy of the world--not because we have the ship, but because we have developed the men who can do that kind of work and the tools for their use. [Illustration: Plan of the _Iowa_.] As many of the readers are aware, the _Iowa_ is by no means the best battle-ship in the American navy. For instance, in her main battery she carries four twelve-inch and eight eight-inch breech-loading rifles, and six four-inch rifles, known as rapid-fire guns, because they use cartridges on the plan of a revolver or rifle cartridge, and can therefore be fired in service five or six times a minute. The new _Kearsarge_ will carry four thirteen-inch and four eight-inch breech-loading rifles and fourteen five-inch rapid-fire guns. The new _Illinois_ class will carry four thirteen-inch rifles and fourteen six-inch rapid-fire guns. The difference in the striking power of the batteries of the _Iowa_ and the newer ships must be manifest to every reader. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that the weight of metal landed, and not the weight of metal thrown, wins the battle. [Illustration: Plan of the _Constitution_.] While we were developing shipbuilders we were also developing gunmakers. For a long time after the war we were contented with making steel tubes which could be shoved into Dahlgren smooth-bores, and so convert them into rifles of eight-inch calibre. Such makeshift work, needless it is to say, served only to drag down the standard of the American gunmakers. But in 1886 the sum of $2,128,000 was appropriated for guns--that is, modern rifles. To go into the details of other modern shipbuilding or modern rifle-making in a history of this kind is obviously impossible; but we may recall the fact that the _Monitor’s_ turret was composed of eight layers of one-inch iron plates, placed so as to break joints, and that the best rifle of that day, a seven-inch Brooke, firing a solid projectile weighing 150 pounds, was unable to do any material damage to the turret. The first contracts for gun-forgings and armor-plates of modern construction were signed in May, 1887--ten years ago. Since that time we have made the plant for the work, and have turned out armor-plates of steel eighteen inches thick that are hardened and toughened to a point where a drill cannot penetrate, and the best projectile, an armor-piercing projectile, weighing 1,100 pounds and “striking with a force sufficient to lift 1,000 tons twenty-five feet, crushed in the backing of oak, but only dented the plate.” The mere statement that our modern rifles throw projectiles weighing 1,100 pounds, which strike with sufficient force to lift 1,000 tons twenty-five feet high, tells the story of the development of the gun. Another exhibit of the progress made is