ends and steering gear, and of allowing her fore and after guns to be fired from behind armour. This, of course, meant a greater weight to be carried, and it could only be done, if speed were not to be sacrificed, by increasing the length of the vessel. So far as manœuvring was concerned, these ships were much worse than their predecessors. [Illustration: H.M.S. “BLACK PRINCE.” _Photograph by Symonds & Co., Portsmouth._] [Illustration: THE “BANGOR,” FIRST IRON SEA-GOING PROPELLER STEAMER IN THE UNITED STATES. _From a Print in the possession of, and reproduced by permission of, the Harlan & Hollingsworth Corporation, U.S.A._] Their engines were on Penn’s trunk system, with two cylinders of 112 inches diameter, and a stroke of 52 inches. Each had ten boilers with four furnaces per boiler, the total grate area being 956 square feet, and the steam was supplied up to a pressure of 25 lb. per square inch. These ships each carried a four-bladed Mangin propeller of 24 feet diameter, which was adjustable so that the pitch could be altered from 22½ feet to 28½ feet. The _Northumberland_ was the first war vessel on which Macfarlane Gray’s steam steering gear, originally invented for the _Great Eastern_, was installed. These three vessels were 400 feet 3 inches in length, and had a beam of a fraction over 59 feet, and drew 27 feet 3 inches, with a displacement of about 10,786 tons. Before referring to the historic American ships of the third quarter of the last century, some attention may be given to a remarkable vessel which passed into the possession of the United States Government. The steamer _Bangor_ was built by the firm of Betts, Harlan and Hollingsworth (now the Harlan and Hollingsworth Corporation), in 1843-4, for the Bangor Steam Navigation Company, of Maine, and was the first iron sea-going propeller steamer constructed in the United States. The hull was formed of bar iron ribs or frames secured by numerous wrought-iron clamps, and her plating was put on in the lapped or “clinker” style, instead of the modern inside and outside method of arranging the sheets. The _Bangor_ measured 231 tons burthen; her length over all was about 131 feet; length between perpendiculars, 120 feet; beam moulded, 23 feet; and depth of hold from base line amidships, 9 feet. She had three wooden masts, with bowsprit and jib-boom, and was schooner-rigged, carrying a suit of eight sails. Passengers were carried aft in a commodious deck-house fitted up in a style of elegance unusual in those days, and considered particularly handsome by her owners and builders. There were but two deck-houses upon the vessel at the time she was built, the third or forward house, as shown in the illustration, having been added afterwards.