This, the first experiment, proved that at a distance of 800 yards, 32- and 18-pounders are harmless against the sides of a floating battery, and the trial has been made first by the French, the arrival of the _Meteor_ and _Glatton_ being delayed.” When they did arrive the work for which they were intended had been accomplished. The _Dévastation_ and her two sisters had platforms on stanchions near the water’s edge; upon each platform were fifty French riflemen who made excellent practice upon the Russian gunners. The Prussian Government ordered from Messrs. Robinson and Russell, in 1851, two paddle-wheel gunboats called _Nix_ and _Salamander_. They were double-ended and could go either end foremost, and though they could take enough coal to carry them two thousand miles, they only drew 7 feet. Their load displacement was 468 tons, and their oscillating cylinder condensing engines gave them, together with their sails, a speed of a little over 11½ knots. The British Government exchanged the 36-gun frigate _Thetis_ for them, and having renamed them _Recruit_ and _Weser_, sent them to the war. They were the only vessels of their class in the British navy. The former was employed in the operations in the Sea of Azoff, and both were held to combine the three essential features of light draught, ability to carry heavy armament, and to possess the highest known rate of speed, so as to give them the power of choosing their own time and place of attack. The _Recruit_ mounted four 68-pounders on her stanchions and bombarded the Russian positions at Taganrog at 1,400 yards, in company with a French steamer, the _Mouette_. Among the numerous types of boats, recognised as belonging to the navy or improvised for some special circumstance, few acquired during the campaign in the Baltic greater renown than the mortar-boats, the gunboats, and the ships’ boats with their rocket apparatus. In the Baltic, as in the Black Sea, the need was felt of small, shallow, powerful ships which could engage the enemy’s batteries at short range, and similar batteries to those sent to the Crimea were forwarded to the Baltic also. The same difficulty of shallow water was experienced by the forces in the Sea of Azoff. So there was improvised by the officers and crew of the _Stromboli_ a remarkable raft of twenty-nine casks placed in six rows and cradled in a framework of heavy spars, a portion of the upper part being planked over. The gun tackles were fastened to a spar lashed over the front of the planking, and the train tackle was similarly fixed aft. She was named the _Lady Nancy_. Her construction took twelve hours, and she carried a long 32-pounder, weighing over 2 tons, 100 rounds of ammunition, a heavy hawser, and a crew of eighteen. She gave a good account of herself at the Battle of Taganrog.