by reason of their shape could never receive a direct blow but only glancing shots, a vessel carrying a circular fort which also could not receive a direct blow must be superior to any vessel afloat, especially if its fort or turret were so heavily armoured as to be proof against the heaviest ordnance to whose fire it should be subjected. Moreover, if the hull were made to offer the least possible mark to an enemy, the difficulty of striking the vessel to sink it would be greatly increased. The form of the vessel was such that if it were used as a ram the weight behind the ram would be in a horizontal plane with the ram at the point of contact, and greater injury would thereby be inflicted upon the side of an opposing vessel than were there a greater amount of weight above the horizontal plane. These considerations were ably supported by Admiral Porter, of the United States Navy, who was well aware of the value of such a means of attack even if the propelling engines could not give the ship a speed of more than four or five miles an hour. The gallant admiral himself was the butt of no slight amount of ridicule by his emphatic declaration that the _Monitor_ “is the strongest floating vessel in the world and can whip anything afloat.” The vessel was built of iron, and can best be described as a shallow, oblong box, with sloping sides, having upon it a pointed, flat, shallow box or raft with a stumpy, circular tower or turret amidships. This box or upper part projected a considerable distance all round above the lower part, and especially so at the stern; and had not the whole vessel been very strongly constructed, the fearful blows which the under-part of the projection received from the sea as it rose and fell on the waves on its passage from New York to Hampton Roads would have driven the two parts asunder. [Illustration: THE “MONITOR”-“MERRIMAC” DUEL. _From a Photograph of a Contemporary Drawing supplied by the U.S. Navy Department._]