A recent purchase was at Bamborough, the ancient capital of the Northumbrian kings, where, nearer our own time, Grace Darling was born and died. Already great improvements are in progress there in the shape of workmen's houses; and the parish church is being restored. Bamborough Castle, which is also included in the purchase, is an imposing mass of masonry, standing on a pile of columnar basalt, which is mentioned early in history; there was a castle here as early as the fifth century. By the will of Lord Crewe it had been devoted as far back as 1721 to charitable purposes. In the autumn of 1893, Lord Armstrong told the Elswick shareholders that he believed the time was coming when armoured ships would be as obsolete as mail-clad men. 'Do what we will,' he said, 'I believe that the means of attack will always overtake the means of defence, and that sooner or later armour will be abandoned.' His reason for this statement was the use of high explosives and quick-firing guns. In the future, light vessels of great speed, armed with quick-firing guns, are likely to be the order of the day. The life of a battleship, he also said, was far too valuable to be staked on the use of its ram; special ships should therefore be built for ramming. On another occasion he discussed the improvements in the manufacture of cordite which had made it possible to secure enormous power even with moderate-sized guns. With a 6-inch gun of 45 calibre, and a 100 lb. projectile, a velocity of nearly 3000 feet per second has been reached, giving an energy of 5884 tons, as against the 5254 tons of the 8-inch gun of ten years ago. This last gun could only fire four rounds in five minutes; now we hear of ten and eighteen rounds in three minutes. As to speed, some warships built for the Argentine Republic and for Japan had reached a speed of 26-1/4 miles an hour, and were at the time the fastest war-vessels afloat. At the annual meeting of shareholders in 1895, Lord Armstrong said that the war-material which they supplied for the great naval war in the East thoroughly stood the test, and the quick-firing guns of the Japanese navy had greatly helped their victory. The heavily-armed high-speed cruisers also deserve a share of the credit, and these had been built by their firm. In connection with an official inquiry it was found that in 1896 there were 18,000 men employed in the arsenal at Elswick alone, and that 13 ironclads and cruisers, and 1400 guns were being built. TESTING GUNS AT SHOEBURYNESS. It is at Shoeburyness, in the county of Essex, that experiments are carried out with the guns, large and small, manufactured at Woolwich and Enfield.