This hull was made of boiler-iron riveted to suitable frames, and the vertical sides of the overhang were protected by five one-inch iron plates bolted on and backed by heavy oak timbers. A heavy timber deck, supported on big wooden beams, was protected from a plunging fire by two layers of half-inch iron plates. On the centre of this hull rose a round turret, twenty feet in diameter inside and nine feet high, made of eight one-inch iron plates. It was supported on a pivot, to which an engine was geared so that it could be readily turned in either direction. Her deck was one foot above the water-line. She carried two eleven-inch smooth-bore guns, firing solid shot weighing from 170 to 180 pounds. Her speed was between four and five knots. A novel feature was the absence of smoke-stacks in action; they were taken apart and laid flat on deck, which gave an all-round fire abaft. The draught to the furnaces was maintained by powerful blowers. Forward of the turret stood a pilot-house made of iron logs, nine inches square, built up log-cabin fashion by notching and bolting the ends together. Her anchor was suspended in a well under the bow, the cable passing through a pipe beneath the deck to a winch further aft. The propeller was, of course, concealed under the overhang aft. In short, her machinery was altogether below the water-line, while her guns were placed as near the centre of gravity as could well be imagined, and were well protected. It is perhaps as well to say here as elsewhere that with such modifications as experience has suggested, the _Monitor_ type is, in the opinion of many of the American captains who have commanded them, not only the best protected, but the most efficient and the safest style of coast-defence ships.