Another novelty was what is called the dynamite cruiser _Vesuvius_. Here is a sea-going torpedo boat armed with three fifteen-inch air-guns that can throw 400 or 500 pounds of high explosive to a range of a mile or more with reasonable accuracy. It is not a popular style of warship with naval officers, and so far as its purpose is for harbor defence, these officers are entirely right. It is the business of the army, with its forts and submarine torpedoes, to defend the harbors. For forts and submarine torpedoes are entirely sufficient for the purpose, and much more economical than ships adapted only for harbor defence. Nevertheless, the idea of a dynamite cruiser has not had a fair trial. The _Vesuvius_ is a very small ship. Her popguns are of a fixed elevation, the range being determined by varying the pressure of the air. It is reasonably sure that the defects that have been developed in trials of her guns and aerial torpedoes might be corrected were she in the hands of some one thoroughly in earnest in the matter, and that a cruiser, to fire high explosives accurately and efficiently and safely by means of compressed air, might be designed. It is also reasonably certain that, because of the dislike of naval officers generally for the present craft, no more of the kind will be designed until Uncle Sam is compelled to “hustle,” if one may be allowed the expression, by the pressure of actual war. Because coastwise steamers may be readily cut down, and adapted for the use of this kind of a torpedo in a very few months, no one is likely to worry about the present failure to build more dynamite cruisers. [Illustration: Launching of One of the Holland Boats, the _Holland_, at Elizabethport, N. J., 1897. _From a photograph belonging to the John P. Holland Co._]