weapon will lie in the number of compartments into which her dimensions will permit of her hull being subdivided or her double bottom to accommodate, thereby restricting the area of the damage and limiting the inrush of water. The torpedo itself is destined to play a part more important than has yet fallen to its lot in war. Not only will it be launched from the tubes of the battleship or cruiser or destroyer at the distant foe, but it will be dirigible, controlled and steered by wireless telegraphy, and extra speed, or counter explosion, or gun-fire, or the disablement of the vessel sending it forth will alone be the means of rendering it ineffective. Torpedo nets may be of value when ships are at anchor or travelling slowly, but not at any other time. The submarine will not be the only danger to be guarded against from an unexpected quarter. The aeroplane and airship will play their parts in the next naval war. Experiments have already been tried in starting a flight of an aeroplane from a platform at the bows of an American warship, and this being accomplished, it is not too much to anticipate that aeroplanes for purposes of observation or attack may become part of the equipment of every battleship or large cruiser. The flying machine will drop its bomb on the deck of the attacked vessel, if the aviator has the good fortune to aim sufficiently straight, but whether the dropped explosive will do much harm will depend on whether the deck is comparatively flat as at present, or is curved like the modern protective deck, or has a bomb-proof turtle back covering it entirely. Will the battleship of the future, then, be an immense cylindrical-backed hull, with one mast or none, innocent of funnels, leaving no trace of smoke behind her, and rushing at a speed of a railway train as she belches forth with almost unerring precision terrible explosives at a similar enemy so far distant as to be barely discernible on the horizon? Are we to see cruisers as much faster than the battleship, as the present cruiser is than the present _Dreadnought_? If, as is asserted to be possible, the battleship of twenty years hence will attain a speed of 30 knots under internal combustion engines, armed with weapons showing a corresponding advance in power and range and penetration, will the cruiser of that time cover its 40 or 45 knots, and the destroyer hurl itself forward at even greater speed to explode its torpedo, also correspondingly more destructive and deadly than now, at its foes? Will the aeroplane enable the whereabouts of the submarine to be more easily detected than now? It sounds like a confusion of ideas that such a thing should be suggested, but it is a well-established fact that it is possible to see further into the open sea from a height above it than when close to the surface. If the cruising aeroplane can detect and reveal the submarine to the battleship, the submarine will be robbed of half its