beam of 88 feet 6 inches. The weight of the _Orion_ at launching was about 8,000 tons, and her estimated load displacement is 22,500 tons. Her engines, developing 27,000 shaft h.p., are Parsons turbines, driving four shafts and screws, each having a turbine for ahead and astern, the ship having a nominal speed of 21 knots, which is expected to be exceeded. She has eighteen water-tube boilers, and can carry, besides 2,700 tons of coal, 1,000 tons of oil in her double bottom tanks. Her armour varies from 12 inches to 4 inches. Under ordinary circumstances the arrangement adopted for the guns would restrict their direct ahead and astern fire very materially, and in order to overcome this difficulty and double the gun-fire ahead or astern, the second and fourth pairs of guns are raised to fire above the others. Besides increasing the effectiveness of the end-on fire, it will also add materially to the weight of the broadside fire, as, the guns being on a different level, there will be less of what is known as the interference of one pair of guns with another, and the air will become clear the sooner so that the gunners will be able to take a more accurate aim than would otherwise be possible. There are also sixteen anti-torpedo 4-inch guns. [Illustration: H.M.S. “NEPTUNE.” _Photograph by Stephen Cribb, Southsea._] [Illustration: H.M. SUPER-DREADNOUGHT “COLOSSUS.” _Photograph by Stephen Cribb, Southsea._] The _Orion_ has about 2,000 tons more displacement than the _Neptune_, and this has enabled her to carry the heavier guns. She has one elevated tripod mast which is provided with wireless telegraphy apparatus. Her two funnels are of more than usual height, and steam is generated in a series of water-tube boilers. To summarise, by way of contrast, the armament arrangement of these ships, it may be said that the _Dreadnought_, the three _Bellerophons_, and the three _St. Vincents_ have six 12-inch guns in three turrets on the middle line of the ship, and two in a turret on either wing. The _Neptune_, _Colossus_, and _Hercules_ have their wing turrets _en echelon_, so that ten guns can be trained on either side. The _Orions_ have all their guns on the centre line of the ship. Which of these systems is the best has been keenly debated. Experiments in gun-fire are being carried out to ascertain it, but the true test can only be warfare, and even then much will depend on the circumstances of the battle and on the men behind the guns.