_John._--Come here, little boys, and I will show you. What do you say to this model of a gunboat for our coast defence? _The Little Boys._--Won’t do ... too small ... too heavy draught ... too large guns ... too light draught ... too large ... too small guns ... won’t do,--that’s what I say ... and I also,--because it isn’t our invention. _John._--Well, little boys, that is at least some reason. ] But if the authorities were dilatory, the mechanics were not. The keel was stretched in that part of the Brooklyn water front called Greenpoint, before the end of the month, although working plans had to be laid in the mould loft and contracts for materials made. Three gangs of men were employed, working eight hours each in succession; the iron was kept hot from the day the work began until January 30, 1862, when the hull was sent afloat in the waters of the East River, under the name of _Monitor_. [Illustration: The Monitor.] The hull of the _Monitor_, as it stood on the land, was in a way something like that of the common ferryboat. There was a smooth, rounded hull, 124 feet long, thirty-four wide, and about six feet deep, with a superstructure laid flat across the top of this hull and projecting out like a guard-rail on all sides. It projected three feet and eight inches on each side, and twenty-five feet at each end. But this overhanging part was really a super-added hull; it was a flat-bottomed hull, 172 feet long, forty-one wide, and five feet deep, laid on top of the lower hull, and secured to it by a single row of rivets. As a whole, the _Monitor_ was unlike any other hull ever built. And it is no disparagement of the genius of Ericsson to say that no sailorman could ever have dreamed of such a thing even when in a delirium from drink.