And with this comes that peculiar roar that no other agent of power produces. It is more like the rush of a limited express into and out of the mouth of a tunnel. You can hear the chug, chug of the locomotive. You hear the rumble of a fast train on a still night through a valley. You can almost see the hills and the little river as the train dashes over bridges and noisy trestles. There it goes into the tunnel again, and before you can speak of it out it comes with another roar! More bridges and trestles, more tunnels, more chugs, and then there comes a steady roar. The train is going over the hill and out of the last tunnel, and you take a long breath. Before you expel it from your lungs there is another smiting flash and you are dancing on your toes again. The ship seems to settle and you get the geysers, the roar of the fastest train that ever ran. And so it goes until the whistle blows and you swing around to look at the target and then repeat the performance. You now begin to realize what a battleship means, and you are speculating about it when an officer comes around and says: "Pretty fine, eh? Well, that's nothing to battle practice! when for a certain number of minutes we let all the guns go together. That's real noise! This is just pop-gun work." Well, if it is not noise you begin to think that if there is ever another war you know one place where you don't want to be, and that is on a battleship. Every one of the ships had to go through this work, and when it was all over then it was that the men on these ships felt the sense of relief that none of them experienced over their safe arrival and the performance of the fleet on the way to this bay. They were ready to drop in their tracks. They were worn out, as the expression goes. There is one moment of great suspense at every gun in such practice as this. It is when some adjustment has gone wrong, when some accident has occurred, and when there is real danger. Then the officer in charge cries sharply: "Silence!" That means that no more shots must be fired from that gun on that run. With it goes a penalty that works against the ship's record. More than once such command has been heard on these ships, but it is wise, for all too sad have been the records of accidents at target practice not only in our own ships but in those of every other navy. It would have pleased any one to observe all the precautions that were taken this time. The navy has learned some lessons. Safer and safer the turrets are becoming all the time. And this element of speed which enters into all contests with the firing of guns conduces to that end. You see, it is not only the hits that count but the time in which they are made.