The _Dartford_, belonging to the “town” class of cruiser, may be regarded as one of the best existing specimens of the modern smaller cruiser. She is of 5,250 tons displacement, as compared with 4,800 tons in the _Liverpool_, one of the earliest of her class, the addition being largely required to carry an increase in her fighting power, as her armament includes eight 6-inch quick-firers, all well protected, and several smaller guns, as compared with two 6-inch guns and ten 4-inch guns in her preceding sisters. The machinery is of the same type and power as that installed in the earlier “town” cruisers, and in view of the high efficiency of the _Liverpool’s_ engines at her speed trials, the _Dartford_ was expected to attain a speed of twenty-six knots. Besides her coal-bunkers at the sides, the _Dartford_ has an armoured deck of nickel steel, with sloping sides extending well below the water-line. Her turbine machinery of 22,000 shaft h.p. is contained in three separate engine-rooms, and there are three separate boiler-rooms for her twelve water-tube boilers. Oil fuel is carried in her double bottom. She has two masts fitted with wireless telegraphy apparatus, and on the foremast is a platform from which the gun-fire can be electrically directed. Some cruisers are distinctly lighter versions of battleships. As developments of the swift battleship of the _Magnificent_ and _Duncan_ types came the armoured cruisers _Cressy_, in 1899, _Drake_, in 1902, and the belted cruisers _Black Prince_, in 1904, and _Minotaur_, in 1906, whence there developed the cruiser-battleship _Inflexible_ in 1907. The _Dreadnought_ cruisers as much surpass the preceding types of cruisers as the _Dreadnought_ battleships surpassed the _Majestics_, etc. For that matter, _Dreadnought_ cruisers, like the _Princess Royal_, as well as the _Queen Mary_ now being built, “could steam round a fleet of pre-_Dreadnought_ ships and fire when it suited them, keeping beyond the range which would enable the old battleship guns to penetrate the armour of the modern cruiser.”[54] The last of the _Dreadnought_ cruisers launched to the time of writing, the _Princess Royal_, is the largest warship ever built by a private firm in England for the British Government, although she is stated to be exceeded by the battleship _Rio de Janeiro_, under construction at Newcastle for the Brazilian Government, which is asserted to have a displacement of 32,000 tons.