and elevating the guns, but our neighbours across the Channel prefer electricity. The latter has been tried in the British Navy, the most notable example being one of the super-_Dreadnoughts_, but the experiment has by no means given satisfaction. Even more striking differences appeared in the matter of the ammunition hoists, etc. The French battleships, M. Canet said, were equipped with hoists leading direct from the magazines to the guns, and there was the drawback that the guns had to be returned to a certain position to be reloaded, and the muzzle had to be depressed a few degrees below the horizontal to facilitate the loading, the projectile being pushed home with a rammer by the gun crew, whose strength was assisted by a compressed spring. The ammunition hoists on the English battleships, on the contrary, were made in two sections. The lower section raised the ammunition to a relay chamber, and the upper section carried it thence to the gun. This method is held to allow of more rapid firing, as a large supply of ammunition can be placed, prior to an action, in the relay chamber, and the store there, as fast as it is drawn upon, can be replenished from the magazines. It has also been held that in case of a shell bursting in the turret the danger to the magazine would be less, and in M. Canet’s opinion the English method is superior to that of the French. Another matter in which he considered the English to have an advantage was in the manner of loading the guns. How this was done on the French battleships has just been explained. The English gun crews could load the guns at any elevation. The ammunition was carried up in a curved hoist, so that it could be delivered at any point desired, and was pushed home by a hydraulic rammer moving with the gun. [Illustration: 12-INCH BREECH MECHANISM (CLOSED).] [Illustration: 12-INCH BREECH MECHANISM (OPEN). _By permission of Messrs. Vickers, Sons & Maxim, Ltd._] [Illustration: INTERIOR OF A BARBETTE, SHOWING 12-INCH GUN, H.M.S. “CÆSAR.” _Photograph by Gale & Polden, Aldershot._] Time brings strange revenges. At one period the French were the leading nation in the world in the matter of naval construction, and the English were content to copy the French designs. But in later years England has taken the lead, and not only France but the other maritime powers of the world have been glad to sit at the feet of Britannia and accept the instruction she has been able to impart. Some of these pupils, if pupils they be, have proved themselves exceedingly apt copyists and improvers, and are inclined to think that their own creations are every whit as good as anything this country can produce.