While my watch was thus pleasantly jesting, we had passed through a low pine wood and come out upon the banks of the Charles River. Just before us, upon the very edge of a river-basin, was a low two-story building full of windows, and beyond, over the trees, were spires. They were the steeples of Waltham, and the many-windowed building was the factory of the American Watch Company. It stands upon a private road opened by the Company in a domain of about seventy acres belonging to them. The building thus secures quiet and freedom from dust, which are essential conditions of so delicate and exquisite a manufacture.

The counting-room, which you enter first, is cheerful and elegant. A new building, which the Company is adding to the factory, will give them part of the ampler room the manufacture now demands; and within the last few months the Company has absorbed the machinery and labor of a rival company at Nashua, which was formed of some of the graduate workmen of Waltham, but which was not successful. Every room in the factory is full of light. The benches of polished cherry, the length of all of them together being about three-quarters of a mile, are ranged along the sides of the rooms, from the windows in which the prospect is rural and peaceful. There is a low hum, but no loud roar or jar in the building. There is no unpleasant smell, and all the processes are so neat and exquisite that an air of elegance pervades the whole.

The first impression, upon hearing that a watch is made by machinery, is, that it must be rather coarse and clumsy. No machine so cunning as the human hand, we are fond of saying. But, if you will look at this gauge, for instance, and then at any of these dainty and delicate machines upon the benches, miniature lathes of steel, and contrivances which combine the skill of innumerable exquisite fingers upon single points, you will feel at once, that, when the machinery itself is so almost poetic and sensitive, the result of its work must be correspondingly perfect.

My friend—not the watch, but the watchmaker—said quietly, "By your leave," and, pulling a single hair from my head, touched it to a fine gauge, which indicated exactly the thickness of the hair. It was a test of the twenty-five hundredth part of an inch. But there are also gauges graduated to the ten-thousandth part of an inch. Here is a workman making screws. Can you just see them? That hardly visible point exuding from the almost imperceptible hole is one of them. A hundred and fifty thousand of them make a pound. The wire costs a dollar; the screws are worth nine hundred and fifty dollars. The magic touch of the machine makes that wire nine hundred and fifty times more valuable. The operator sets them in regular rows upon a thin plate. When the plate is full, it is passed to another machine, which cuts the little groove upon the top of each,—and of course exactly in the same spot. Every one of those hundred and fifty thousand screws in every pound is accurately the same as every other, and any and all of them, in this pound or any pound, any one of the millions or ten millions of this size, will fit precisely every hole made for this sized screw in every plate of every watch made in the factory. They are kept in little glass phials, like those in which the homoeopathic doctors keep their pellets.

The fineness and variety of the machinery are so amazing, so beautiful,—there is such an exquisite combination of form and movement,—such sensitive teeth and fingers and wheels and points of steel,—such fairy knives of sapphire, with which King Oberon the first might have been beheaded, had he insisted upon levying dew-taxes upon primroses without the authority of his elves,—such smooth cylinders, and flying points so rapidly revolving that they seem perfectly still.—such dainty oscillations of parts with the air of intelligent consciousness of movement,—that a machinery so extensive in details, so complex, so harmonious, at length entirely magnetizes you with wonder and delight, and you are firmly persuaded that you behold the magnified parts of a huge brain in the very act of thinking out watches.

In various rooms, by various machines, the work of perfecting the parts from the first blank form cut out of Connecticut brass goes on. Shades of size are adjusted by the friction of whirring cylinders coated with diamond dust. A flying steel point touched with diamond paste pierces the heart of the "jewels." Wheels rimmed with brass wisps hum steadily, as they frost the plates with sparkling gold. Shaving of metal peel off, as other edges turn, so impalpably fine that five thousand must be laid side by side to make an inch. But there is no dust, no unseemly noise. All is cheerful and airy, the faces of the workers most of all. You pass on from point to point, from room to room. Every machine is a day's study and a life's admiration, if you could only tarry. No wonder the director says to me, as we move on, that his whole consciousness is possessed by the elaborate works he superintends.

He opens a door, while we speak, and you would not be in the least surprised, in the exalted condition to which the wonderful spectacle has brought you, to hear him say, "In this room we keep the Equator." In fact, as the door opens, and the gush of hot air breathes out upon your excited brain, it seems to you as if it undoubtedly were the back-door to—the Tropics. It is the dial-room, in which the enamel is set. The porcelain is made in London. It is reduced to a paste in this room, and fused upon thin copperplates at white heat. When cooled, it is ground off smoothly, then baked to acquire a smooth glaze. It is then ready for painting with the figures.

When all the pieces of the watch-movement are thus prepared, they are gathered in sets, and carried to the putting-up room, where each part is thoroughly tested and regulated. The pieces move in processions of boxes, each part by itself; and each watch, when put together, is as good as every other. In an old English lever-watch there are between eight and nine hundred pieces. In the American there are but about a hundred and twenty parts. My friend the director says, that, if you put a single American against a single European watch, the foreign may vary a second less in a certain time; but if you will put fifty or a hundred native against the same number of foreign watches, the native group will be uniformly more accurate. In the case of two watches of exactly the same excellence, the regulator of one may be adjusted to the precise point, while that of the other may imperceptibly vary from that point. But that is a chance. The true test is in a number.

"If now we add," ticked the faithful friend in my pocket, "that watch-movements of a similar grade without the cases are produced here at half the cost of the foreign, doesn't it seem to you that we have Lancashire and Warwickshire in England and Locle and La Chaux de Fond in Switzerland upon the hip?"

"It certainly does," I answered,—for what else could I say?

Five different sizes of watches are made at Waltham. The latest is the Lady's Watch, for which no parent or lover need longer go to Geneva. And the affectionate pride with which the manager took up one of the finest specimens of the work and turned it round for me to see was that of a parent showing a precious child.

While we strolled through every room, the workers were not less interesting to see than the work. There are now about three hundred and fifty of them, of whom nearly a third are women. Scarcely twenty are foreigners, and they are not employed upon the finest work. Of course, as the machinery is peculiar to this factory, the workers must be specially instructed. The foremen are not only overseers, but teachers; and I do not often feel myself to be in a more intelligent and valuable society than that which surrounded me, a wondering, staring, smiling, inquiring, utterly unskilful body in the ancestral halls of my tried friend and trusty counsellor, The American Watch.

* * * * *

BENJAMIN BANNEKER, THE NEGRO ASTRONOMER.

In these days, when strong interests, embodied in fierce parties, are clashing, one recalls the French proverb of those who make so much noise that you cannot hear God thunder. It does not take much noise to drown the notes of a violin; but go to the hill a fourth of a mile off, and the noises shall die away at its base, whilst the music shall be heard. Those who can remove themselves away from and above the plane of party-din can hear God's modulated thunder in the midst of it, uttering ever a "certain tune and measured music." And such can hear now the great voice at the sepulchre's door of a race, saying, Come forth! This war is utterly inexplicable except as the historic method of delivering the African race in America from slavery, and this nation from the crime and curse inevitably linked therewith in the counsels of God, which are the laws of Nature. If the friends of freedom in the Government do not understand this, it is plain enough that the myrmidons of slavery throughout the land understand it. And hence it is that we are witnessing their unremitting efforts to exasperate the prejudices of the vulgar against the negro, and to prove degradation, and slavery to be his normal condition. They point to his figure as sculptured on ancient monuments, bearing chains, and claim that his enslavement is lawful as immemorial custom; but as well point to the brass collars on our Saxon forefathers' necks to prove their enslavement lawful. The fact that slavery belonged to a patriarchal age is the very reason why it is impracticable in a republican age,—as its special guardians in this country seem to have discovered. But this question is now scarcely actual. The South, by its first blow against the Union and the Constitution, whose neutrality toward it was its last and only protection from the spirit of the age, did, like the simple fisherman, unseal the casket in which the Afreet had been so long dwarfed. He is now escaping. Thus far, indeed, he is so much escaped force; for he might be bearing our burdens for us, if we only rubbed up the lamp which the genie obeys. But whether we shall do this or not, it is very certain that he is now emerging from the sea and the casket, and into it will descend no more. Henceforth the negro is to take his place in the family of races; and no studies can be more suitable to our times than those which recognize his special capacity.

The questions raised by military exigencies have brought before the public the many interesting facts drawn from the history of Hayti and from our own Revolution, showing the heroism of the negro, though we doubt whether they can surpass the stories of Tatnall, Small, and others, which have led a high European authority to observe that in this war no individual heroism among the whites has equalled that of the blacks. But the forthcoming social questions concerning the negro will be even more exciting than the military. What are we to expect from the unsealed Afreet,—good or evil? It was whilst studying in this direction that I came upon the few facts which relate to Benjamin Banneker,—facts which, though not difficult of access, are scarcely known beyond the district in Maryland where, on the spot where he was born, his unadorned grave receives now and then a visit from some pilgrim of his own race who has found out the nobleness which Jefferson recognized and Condorcet admired.

Benjamin Banneker was born in Baltimore County, near the village of Ellicott's Mills, in the year 1732. There was not a drop of the white man's blood in his veins. His father was born in Africa, and his mother's parents were both natives of Africa. What genius he had, then, must be credited to that race. Benjamin's mother was a remarkable woman, and of a remarkable family. Her name was Morton, before marriage, and a nephew of hers, Greenbury Morton, was gifted with a lively and impetuous eloquence which made its mark in his neighborhood. Of him it is related that he once came to a certain election-precinct in Baltimore County to deposit his vote; for, prior to the year 1809, negroes with certain property-qualifications voted in Maryland. It was in this year, in which the law restricting the right of voting to free whites was passed, that Morton, who had not heard of its passage, came to the polls. When his vote was refused, Morton in a state of excitement took his stand on a door-step, and was immediately surrounded by the crowd, whom he addressed in a strain of passionate and prophetic eloquence which bore all hearts and minds with him. He warned them that the new law was a step backward from the standard which their fathers had raised in the Declaration, and which they had hoped would soon be realized in universal freedom; that that step, unless retraced, would end in bitter and remorseless revolutions. The crowd was held in breathless attention, and none were found to favor the new law.

This man, we have said, was the nephew of Benjamin's mother. She was a woman of remarkable energy, and after she was seventy years of age was accustomed to run down the chickens she wished to catch. Her husband was a slave when she married him, but it was a very small part of her life's task to purchase his freedom. Together they soon bought a farm of one hundred acres, which we find conveyed by Richard Gist to Robert Bannaky, (as the name was then spelt,) and Benjamin Bannaky, his son, (then five years old,) on the tenth of March, 1737, for the consideration of seven thousand pounds of tobacco. The region in which Benjamin was born was almost a wilderness; for in 1732 Elkridge Landing was of more importance than Baltimore; and even in 1754 this city consisted only of some twenty poor houses straggling on the hills to the right of Jones's Falls. The residence of the Bannekers was ten miles into the wilderness from these.

It was under these unpromising circumstances that little Benjamin grew up, his destiny being apparently nothing more than to work on the little farm beside his poor and ignorant parents. When he was approaching manhood, he went, in the intervals of toil, to an obscure and remote country-school; for, until the cotton-gin made negroes too valuable on the animal side for the human side to be allowed anything so perilous as education, there were to be found here and there in the South fountains whereat even negroes might slake their thirst for learning. At this school Benjamin acquired a knowledge of reading and writing, and advanced in arithmetic as far as "Double Position." Beyond these rudiments he was entirely his own teacher. After leaving school he had to labor constantly for his own support; but he lost nothing of what he had acquired. It is a frequent remark that up to a certain point the negroes learn even more rapidly than white children under the same teaching, but that afterward, in the higher branches, they are slow, and, some maintain, incapable. Young Banneker had no books at all, but in the midst of his labor he so improved upon and evolved what he had gained in arithmetic that his intelligence became a matter of general observation. He was such an acute observer of the natural world, and had so diligently observed the signs of the times in society, that it is very doubtful whether at forty years of age this African had his superior in Maryland.

Perhaps the first wonder amongst his comparatively illiterate neighbors was excited, when, about the thirtieth year of his age, Benjamin made a clock. It is probable that this was the first clock of which every portion was made in America; it is certain that it was as purely his own invention as if none had ever been made before. He had seen a watch, but never a clock, such an article not being within fifty miles of him. The watch was his model. He was a long time at work on the clock,—his chief difficulty, as he used often to relate, being to make the hour, minute, and second hands correspond in their motion. But at last the work was completed, and raised the admiration for Banneker to quite a high pitch among his few neighbors.

The making of the clock proved to be of great importance in assisting the young man to fulfil his destiny. It attracted the attention of the Ellicott family, who had just begun a settlement at Ellicott's Mills. They were well-educated men, with much mechanical knowledge, and some of them Quakers. They sought out the ingenious negro, and he could not have fallen into better hands. It was in 1787 that Benjamin received from Mr. George Ellicott Mayer's "Tables," Ferguson's "Astronomy," and Leadbetter's "Lunar Tables." Along with these, some astronomical instruments, also, were given him. Mr. Ellicott, prevented from telling Benjamin anything concerning the use of the instruments for some time after they were given, went over to repair this omission one day, but found that the negro had discovered all about them and was already quite independent of instruction. From this time astronomy became the great object of Banneker's life, and in its study he almost disappeared from the sight of his neighbors. He was unmarried, and lived alone in the cabin and on the farm which he had inherited from his parents. He had still to labor for his living; but he so simplified his wants as to be enabled to devote the greater portion of his time to astronomical studies. He slept much during the day, that he might the more devotedly observe at night the heavenly bodies whose laws he was slowly, but surely, mastering.

And now he began to have a taste of that persecution to which every genius under similar circumstances is subject. He was no longer seen in the field, where formerly his constancy had gained him a reputation for industry, and some who called at his cabin during the day-time found him asleep; so he began to be spoken of as a lazy fellow, who would come to no good, and whose age would disappoint the promise of his youth. There was a time when this so excited his neighbors against him that he had serious fears of disturbance. A memorandum in his hand-writing, dated December 18, 1790, states:—

"——— ———informed me that ——— stole my horse and great-coat, and that the said ——— intended to murder me when opportunity presented. ——— ——— gave me a caution to let no one come into my house after dark."

The names were originally written in full; but they were afterward carefully cancelled, as though Banneker had reflected that it was wrong to leave on record an unauthenticated assertion against an individual, which, if untrue, might prejudice him by the mere fact that it had been made.

Very soon after the possession of the books already mentioned, Banneker determined to compile an almanac, that being the most familiar use that occurred to him of the information he had acquired. To make an almanac was a very different thing then from what it would be now, when there is an abundance of accurate tables and rules. Banneker had no aid whatever from men or tables; and Mr. George Ellicott, who procured some tables and took them to him, states that he had advanced far in the preparation of the logarithms necessary for his purpose. A memorandum in his calculations at this time thus corrects an error in Ferguson's Astronomy:—

"It appears to me that the wisest men may at times be in error: for instance, Dr. Ferguson informs us, that, when the sun is within 12 deg. of either node at the time of full, the moon will be eclipsed; but I find, that, according to his method of projecting a lunar eclipse, there will be none by the above elements, and yet the sun is within 11 deg. 46' 11" of the moon's ascending node. But the moon being in her apogee prevents the appearance of this eclipse."

Another memorandum makes the following corrections:—

"Errors that ought to be corrected in my Astronomical Tables are these:—2d vol. Leadbetter, p. 201, when [symbol] anomaly is 4^s 30 deg., the equation 3 deg. 30' 41" ought to have been 3 deg. 28' 41". In [symbol] equation, p. 155, the logarithm of his distance from [symbol] ought to have been 6 in the second place from the index, instead of 7, that is, from the time that his anomaly is 3^s 24 deg. until it is 4^s O deg.."

Both Ferguson and Leadbetter would have been amazed, had they been informed that their elaborate works had been reviewed and corrected by a negro in the then unheard-of valley of the Patapsco.

The first almanac prepared by Banneker for publication was for the year 1792. By this time his acquirements had become generally known, and amongst those who were attracted by them was James McHenry, Esq. Mr. McHenry wrote to Goddard and Angell, then the almanac-publishers of Baltimore, and procured the publication of this work, which contained, from the pen of Mr. McHenry, a brief notice of Banneker. In their editorial notice Goddard and Angell say, "They feel gratified in the opportunity of presenting to the public through their press what must be considered as an extraordinary effort of genius,—a complete and accurate Ephemeris for the year 1792, calculated by a sable son of Africa," etc. And they further say that "they flatter themselves that a philanthropic public, in this enlightened era, will be induced to give their patronage and support to this work, not only on account of its intrinsic merits, (it having met the approbation of several of the most distinguished astronomers of America, particularly the celebrated Mr. Rittenhouse,) but from similar motives to those which induced the editors to give this calculation the preference, the ardent desire of drawing modest merit from obscurity, and controverting the long-established illiberal prejudice against the blacks."

Banneker was himself entirely conscious of the bearings of his case upon the position of his people; and though remarkable for an habitual modesty, he solemnly claimed that his works had earned respect for the African race. In this spirit he wrote to Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State under Washington, transmitting a manuscript copy of his almanac. The letter is a fervent appeal for the down-trodden negro, and a protest against the injustice and inconsistency of the United States toward that color. Mr. Jefferson's reply is as follows:—

"Philadelphia, Pa., August 30, 1791.

"Sir,—I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th instant, and for the almanac it contained. Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that Nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing only to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa and America. I can add with truth that no one wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body and mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circumstances which cannot be neglected, will admit. I have taken the liberty of sending your almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and Member of the Philanthropic Society, because I considered it a document to which your whole color had a right for their justification against the doubts which have been entertained of them.

"I am, with great esteem, Sir,

"Your most obedient serv't,

"THO. JEFFERSON."

When his first almanac was published, Banneker was fifty-nine years of age, and had received tokens of respect from all the scientific men of the country. The commissioners appointed after the adoption of the Constitution in 1789 to run the lines of the District of Columbia invited the presence and assistance of Banneker, and treated him as an equal. They invited him to take a seat at their table; but he declined, and requested a separate table.

Banneker continued to calculate and publish almanacs until the year 1802. Besides numerous valuable astronomical and mathematical notes found amongst his papers are observations of passing events, showing that he had the mind of a philosopher. For instance:—

"27th Aug. 1797. Standing at my door, I heard the discharge of a gun, and in four or five seconds of time the small shot came rattling about me, one or two of which struck the house; which plainly demonstrates that the velocity of sound is greater than that of a cannon-bullet."

"23d Dec. 1790. About 3 o'clock A.M., I heard a sound and felt a shock like unto heavy thunder. I went out, but could not observe any cloud. I therefore conclude it must be a great earthquake in some part of the globe."

In April, 1800, he writes:—

"The first great locust year that I can remember was 1749. I was then about seventeen years of age, when thousands of them came creeping up the trees. I imagined they came to destroy the fruit of the earth, and would occasion a famine in the land. I therefore began to destroy them, but soon saw that my labor was in vain. Again, in the year 1766, seventeen years after their first appearance, they made a second. I then, being about thirty-four years of age, had more sense than to endeavor to destroy them, knowing they were not so pernicious to the fruit as I had imagined. Again, in the year 1783, which was seventeen years later, they made their third appearance to me; and they may be expected again in 1800. The female has a sting in her tail as sharp and hard as a thorn, with which she perforates the branches of trees, and in the holes lays eggs. The branch soon dies and falls. Then the egg, by some occult cause, immerges a great depth into the earth, and there continues for the space of seventeen years, as aforesaid."

The following is worthy of Pliny:—

"In the month of January, 1797, on a pleasant day for the season, I observed my honey-bees to be out of their hives, and they seemed to be very busy, excepting one hive. Upon examination, I found all the bees had evacuated this hive, and left not a drop behind them. On the 9th of February ensuing, I killed the neighboring hives of bees, and found a great quantity of honey, considering the season,—which I imagine the stronger had taken from the weaker, and the weaker had pursued them to their home, resolved to be benefited by their labor, or die in the contest."

Mr. Benjamin H. Ellicott, who was a true friend of Banneker, and collected from various sources all the facts concerning him, wrote in a letter as follows:—

"During the whole of his long life he lived respectably and much esteemed by all who became acquainted with him, but more especially by those who could fully appreciate his genius and the extent of his acquirements. Although his mode of life was regular and extremely retired,—living alone, having never married, cooking his own victuals and washing his own clothes, and scarcely ever being absent from home,—yet there was nothing misanthropic in his character; for a gentleman who knew him thus speaks of him: 'I recollect him well. He was a brave-looking, pleasant man, with something very noble in his appearance. His mind was evidently much engrossed in his calculations; but he was glad to receive the visits which we often paid him.' Another writes: 'When I was a boy I became very much interested in him, as his manners were those of a perfect gentleman: kind, generous, hospitable, humane, dignified, and pleasing, abounding in information on all the various subjects and incidents of the day, very modest and unassuming, and delighting in society at his own house. I have seen him frequently. His head was covered with a thick suit of white hair, which gave him a very dignified and venerable appearance. His dress was uniformly of superfine drab broadcloth, made in the old style of a plain coat, with straight collar and long waistcoat, and a broad-brimmed hat. His color was not jet-black, but decidedly negro. In size and personal appearance, the statue of Franklin at the library in Philadelphia, as seen from the street, is a perfect likeness of him. Go to his house when you would, either by day or night, there was constantly standing in the middle of the floor a large table covered with books and papers. As he was an eminent mathematician, he was constantly in correspondence with other mathematicians in this country, with whom there was an interchange of questions of difficult solution.'"

Banneker died in the year 1804, beloved and respected by all who knew him. Though no monument marks the spot where he was born and lived a true and high life and was buried, yet history must record that the most original scientific intellect which the South has yet produced was that of the pure African, Benjamin Banneker.

* * * * *

THE SLEEPING SENTINEL.

When the great Theban, in his midnight tramp, A sleeping guard beside the postern saw, He slew him on the instant, that the camp Might read in blood a soldier's swerveless law.

"Blame not your General!"—pointing to the slain,— The wise, severe Epaminondas said,— "I was not cruel, comrades, for 't is plain I only left him, as I found him, dead!"



IRON-CLAD SHIPS AND HEAVY ORDNANCE.

The new system of naval warfare which characterizes the age was proposed by John Stevens of Hoboken during the War of 1812, recommended by Paixhans in 1821, made the subject of official and private experiment here and in Europe during the last ten years especially, subjected to practical test at Kinburn in 1855, recognized then by France and England in the commencement of iron-clad fleets, first practised by the United States Government in the capture of Fort Henry, and at last established and inaugurated not only in fact, but in the principle and direction of progress, by the memorable action of the ninth of March, 1862, in the destruction of the wooden sailing-frigates Cumberland and Congress by the steam-ram Merrimack, and the final discomfiture of that powerful and heavily armed victor by the turreted, iron, two-gun Monitor.

The consideration of iron-clad vessels involves that of armor, ordnance, projectiles, and naval architecture.

ARMOR.

Material. In 1861, the British iron-plate committee fired with 68-pounders at many varieties of iron, cast-steel and puddled-steel plates, and combinations of hard and soft metals. The steel was too brittle, and crumbled, and the targets were injured in proportion to their hardness. An obvious conclusion from all subsequent firing at thick iron plates was, that, to avoid cracking on the one hand, and punching on the other, wrought-iron armor should resemble copper more than steel, except that it should be elastic, although not necessarily of the highest tensile strength. Copper, however, proved much too soft. The experiments of Mr. E.A. Stevens of Hoboken, with thick plates, confirm this conclusion. But for laminated armor, (several thicknesses of thin plates,) harder and stronger iron offers greater resistance to shot, and steel crumbles less than when it is thicker. The value of hard surfaces on inclined armor will be alluded to.

Solid and Laminated Armor compared. Backing. European experimenters set out upon the principle that the resistance of plates is nearly as the square of their thickness,—for example, that two 2-inch plates are but half as strong as one 4-inch plate; and the English, at least, have never subjected it to more than one valuable test. During the last year, a 6-inch target, composed of 5/8-inch boiler-plates, with a 1-1/2-inch plate in front, and held together by alternate rivets and screws 8 inches apart, was completely punched; and a 10-inch target, similarly constructed, was greatly bulged and broken at the back by the 68-pounder (8 inch) smooth-bore especially, and the 100-pounder rifle at 200 yards,—guns that do not greatly injure the best solid 4-1/2-inch plates at the same range. On the contrary, a 124-pounder (10 inch) round-shot, having about the same penetrating power, as calculated by the ordinary rule, fired by Mr. Stevens in 1854, but slightly indented, and did not break at the back, a 6-5/8-inch target similarly composed. All the experiments of Mr. Stevens go to show the superiority of laminated armor. Within a few months, official American experiments have confirmed this theory, although the practice in the construction of ships is divided. The Roanoke's plates are solid; those of the Monitor class are laminated. Solid plates, generally 4-1/2 inches thick and backed by 18 inches of teak, are exclusively used in Europe. Now the resistance of plates to punching in a machine is directly as the sheared area, that is to say, as the depth and the diameter of the hole. But, the argument is, in this case, and in the case of laminated armor, the hole is cylindrical, while in the case of a thick armor-plate it is conical,—about the size of the shot, in front, and very much larger in the rear,—so that the sheared or fractured area is much greater. Again, forged plates, although made with innumerable welds from scrap which cannot be homogeneous, are, as compared with rolled plates made with few welds from equally good material, notoriously stronger, because the laminae composing the latter are not thoroughly welded to each other, and they are therefore a series of thin plates. On the whole, the facts are not complete enough to warrant a conclusion. It is probable that the heavy English machinery produces better-worked thick plates than have been tested in America, and that American iron, which is well worked in the thin plate used for laminated armor, is better than English iron; while the comparatively high velocities of shot used in England are more trying to thin plates, and the comparatively heavy shot in America prove most destructive to solid plates. So that there is as yet no common ground of comparison. The cost of laminated armor is less than half that of solid plates. Thin plates, breaking joints, and bolted to or through the backing, form a continuous girder and add vastly to the strength of a vessel, while solid blocks add no such strength, but are a source of strain and weakness. In the experiments mentioned, there was no wooden backing behind the armor. It is hardly possible,—in fact, it is nowhere urged,—that elastic wooden backing prevents injury to the armor in any considerable degree. Indeed, the English experiments of 1861 prove that a rigid backing of masonry—in other words, more armor—increases the endurance of the plates struck. Elastic backing, however, deadens the blow upon the structure behind it, and catches the iron splinters; it is, therefore, indispensable in ships.

Vertical and Inclined Armor. In England, in 1860, a target composed of 4-1/2-inch plates backed with wood and set at 38 deg. from the horizon was injured about one-half as much by round 68-pounder shot as vertical plates of the same thickness would have been. In 1861, a 3-1/4 plate at 45 deg. was more injured by elongated 100-pounder shot than a 4-1/2 vertical plate, both plates having the same backing and the weights of iron being equal for the same vertical height. When set at practicable angles, inclined armor does not glance flat-fronted projectiles. Its greater cost, and especially the waste of room it occasions in a ship, are practically considered in England to be fatal objections. The result of Mr. Stevens's experiments is, substantially, that a given thickness of iron, measured on the line of fire, offers about equal resistance to shot, whether it is vertical or inclined. Flat-fronted or punch shot will be glanced by armor set at about 12 deg. from the horizon. A hard surface on the armor increases this effect; and to this end, experiments with Franklinite are in progress. The inconvenience of inclined armor, especially in sea-going vessels, although its weight is better situated than that of vertical armor, is likely to limit its use generally.

Fastening Armor. A series of thin plates not only strengthen the whole vessel, but fasten each other. All methods of giving continuity to thick plates, such as tonguing and grooving, besides being very costly, have proved too weak to stand shot, and are generally abandoned. The fastenings must therefore be stronger, as each plate depends solely on its own; and the resistance of plates must be decreased, either by more or larger bolt-holes. The working of the thick plates of the European vessels Warrior and La Gloire, in a sea-way, is an acknowledged defect. There are various practicable plans of fastening bolts to the backs of plates, and of holding plates between angle-irons, to avoid boring them through. It is believed that plates will ultimately be welded. Boiler-joints have been welded rapidly and uniformly by means of light furnaces moving along the joint, blowing a jet of flame upon it, and closely followed by hammers to close it up. The surfaces do not oxidize when enveloped in flame, and the weld is likely to be as strong as the solid plate. Large plates prove stronger than small plates of equally good material. English 4-1/2-inch armor-plates are generally 3-1/2 feet wide and to 24 feet long. American 4-1/2-inch plates are from 2 to 3 feet wide and rarely exceed 12 feet in length. Armor composed of light bars, like that of the Galena, is very defective, as each bar, deriving little strength from adjacent, offers only the resistance of its own small section. The cheapness of such armor, however, and the facility with which it can be attached, may compensate for the greater amount required, when weight is not objectionable. The 14-inch and 10-inch targets, constructed, without backing, on this principle, and tested in England in 1859 and 1860, were little damaged by 68-and 100-pounders.

The necessary thickness of armor is simply a question of powder, and will be further referred to under the heads of Ordnance and Naval Architecture.

ORDNANCE AND PROJECTILES.

Condition of Greatest Effect. It is a well-settled rule, that the penetration projectiles is proportionate directly to their weight and diameter, and to the square of their velocity. For example, the 10-1/2-inch Armstrong 150-pound shot, thrown by 50 pounds of powder at 1,770 feet per second, has nearly twice the destructive effect upon striking, and four times as much upon passing its whole diameter through armor, as the 15-inch 425-pound shot driven by the same powder at 800 feet. The American theory is, that very heavy shot, at necessarily low velocities, with a given strain on the gun, will do more damage, by racking and straining the whole structure than lighter and faster shot which merely penetrate. This is not yet sufficiently tested. The late remarkable experiments in England—firing 130-and 150-pound Whitworth steel shells, holding 3 to 5 pounds of powder, from a 7-inch Armstrong gun, with 23 to 27 pounds of powder, through the Warrior target, and bursting them in and beyond the backing—certainly show that large calibres are not indispensable in fighting iron-clads. A destructive blow requires a heavy charge of powder; which brings us to

The Strain and Structure of Guns, and Cartridges. The problem is, 1st, to construct a gun which will stand the heaviest charge; 2d, to reduce the strain on the gun without reducing the velocity of the shot. It is probable that powder-gas, from the excessive suddenness of its generation, exerts a percussive as well as a statical pressure, thus requiring great elasticity and a certain degree of hardness in the gun-metal, as well as high tensile strength. Cast-iron and bronze are obviously inadequate. Solid wrought-iron forgings are not all that could be desired in respect of elasticity and hardness, but their chief defect is want of homogeneity, due to the crude process of puddling, and to their numerous and indispensable welds. Low cast-steel, besides being elastic, hard, tenacious, and homogeneous, has the crowning advantage of being produced in large masses without flaw or weld. Krupp, of Prussia, casts ingots of above 20 tons' weight, and has forged a cast-steel cannon of 9 inches bore. One of these ingots, in the Great Exhibition, measured 44 inches in diameter, and was uniform and fine-grained throughout. His great success is chiefly due to the use of manganesian iron, (which, however, is inferior to the Franklinite of New Jersey, because it contains no zinc,) and to skill in heating the metal, and to the use of heavy hammers. His heaviest hammer weighs 40 tons, falls 12 feet, and strikes a blow which does not draw the surface like a light hammer, but compresses the whole mass to the core. Krupp is now introducing the Bessemer process for producing ingots of any size at about the cost of wrought-iron. These and other makes of low-steel have endured extraordinary tests in the form of small guns and other structures subject to concussion and strain; and both the theory and all the evidence that we have promise its superiority for gun-metal. But another element of resistance is required in guns with thick walls. The explosion of the powder is so instantaneous that the exterior parts of the metal do not have time to act before the inner parts are strained beyond endurance. In order to bring all parts of a great mass of metal into simultaneous tension, Blakely and others have hooped an inner tube with rings having a successively higher initial tension. The inner tube is therefore under compression, and the outer ring under a considerable tension, when the gun is at rest, but all parts are strained simultaneously and alike when the gun is under pressure. The Parrott and Whitworth cannon are constructed on this principle, and there has been some practice in winding tubes with square steel wire to secure the most uniform gradation of tension at the least cost. There is some difficulty as yet in fastening the wire and giving the gun proper longitudinal strength. Mr. Wiard, of New York, makes an ingenious argument to show that large cannon burst from the expansion of the inner part of the gun by the heat of frequent successive explosions. In this he is sustained to some extent by Mr. Mallet, of Dublin. The greater the enlargement of the inner layer of metal, the less valuable is the above principle of initial tension. In fact, placing the inner part of the gun in initial tension and the outer part in compression would better resist the effect of internal heat. But Mr. Wiard believes that the longitudinal expansion of the inner stratum of the gun is the principal source of strain. A gun made of annular tubes meets this part of the difficulty; for, if the inner tube is excessively heated, it can elongate and slip a little within those surrounding it, without disturbing them. In fact, the inner tube of the Armstrong gun is sometimes turned within the others by the inertia of the rifled projectile. On the whole, then, hooping an inner steel tube with successively tighter steel rings, or, what is better, tubes, is the probable direction of improvement in heavy ordnance. An inner tube of iron, cast hollow on Rodman's plan, so as to avoid an inherent rupturing strain, and hooped with low-steel without welds, would be cheaper and very strong. An obvious conclusion is, that perfect elasticity in the metal would successfully meet all the foregoing causes of rupture.

In America, where guns made entirely of cast-iron, and undoubtedly the best in the world for horizontal shell-firing, are persisted in, though hardly adequate to the heavy charges demanded by iron-clad warfare, the necessity of decreasing the strain on the gun without greatly reducing the velocity of the shot has become imperative. It would be impossible even to recapitulate the conflicting arguments of the experts on this subject, within the limits of this paper. It does appear from recent experiments, however, that this result can be accomplished by compressing the powder, so that, we will suppose, it burns slowly and overcomes the inertia of the shot before the whole mass is ignited; and also by leaving an airspace around the cartridge, into which the gases probably expand while the inertia of the shot is being overcome, thus avoiding the excessive blow upon the walls of the gun during the first instant of the explosion. Whatever the cause may be, the result is of the highest importance, not only as to cast-iron guns, but as to all ordnance, and warrants the most earnest and thorough investigation. The principles of the Armstrong gun differ in some degree from all those mentioned, and will be better referred to under the head of Heavy Ordnance Described. The Armstrong gun is thus fabricated. A long bar of iron, say 3 by 4 inches in section, is wound into a close coil about 2 feet long and of the required diameter,—say 18 inches. This is set upon end at a welding heat under a steam-hammer and "upset" into a tube which is then recessed in a lathe on the ends so as to fit into other tubes. Two tubes set end to end are heated to welding, squeezed together by a heavy screw passing through them, and then hammered lightly on the outside without a mandrel. Other short tubes are similarly added. Five tubes of different lengths and diameters are turned and bored and shrunk over one another, without successively increasing tension, however, to form a gun. The breech-end of the second tube from the bore is forged solid so that its grain will run parallel with the bore and give the gun longitudinal strength. Both the wedge and the screw breech-loading apparatus are employed on guns of 7 inches bore (110-pounders) and under. It will thus be seen that the defects of large solid forgings are avoided; that the iron may be well worked before it is formed into a gun; and that its greatest strength is in the direction of the greatest strain; and on the other hand, that the gun is weak longitudinally and excessively costly, (the 7-inch gun costs $4,000, and tin 10-1/2-inch, $9,000,) and that the material, although strong and pretty trustworthy in the shape of bars, has insufficient elasticity and hardness. Still, it is a formidable gun, especially when relieved of the weak and complex breech-loading apparatus, and used with a better system of rifling and projectiles than Armstrong's. The 110-pounder Armstrong rifle has 99-1/2 inches length and 7 inches diameter of bore, 27 inches maximum diameter, and weighs 4-1/3 tons. The "300-pounder" smooth-bore has 11 feet length and 10-1/2 inches diameter of bore, 38 inches maximum diameter, and weighs 10-1/2 tons. The Mersey Iron-Works guns are of wrought-iron, and are forged solid like steamboat-shafts, or hollow by laying up staves into the form of a barrel and welding layers of curved plates upon them until the whole mass is united. But few of these guns have been fabricated. The most remarkable of them are, 1st, the Horsfall smooth-bore, of 13 inches bore, 44 inches maximum diameter, and 24 tons weight,—price, $12,500; 2d, the "Alfred" rifle, in the recent Exhibition, of 10 inches bore,—price, $5,000; 3d, the 12-inch smooth-bore in the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, which, though very light, has fired a double 224-pound shot with 45 pounds of powder: if properly hooped, it would make the most formidable gun in America. Blakely has constructed for Russia two 13-inch smooth-bore guns, 15 feet long and 47 inches maximum diameter, of cast-iron hooped with steel: price, $10,000 each. He has also fabricated many others of large calibre, on the principles before mentioned. The 15-inch Rodman smooth-bore cast-iron gun is of 48 inches maximum diameter, 15 feet 10 inches long, and weighs 25 tons. The cost of such guns is about $6,000. The Dahlgren 15-inch guns on the Monitors are about four feet shorter.

Results of Heavy Ordnance. The 10-1/2-inch Armstrong gun sent a round 150-pound shot, with 50 pounds of powder, through a 5-1/2-inch solid plate and its 9-inch teak backing and 5/8-inch iron lining, at 200 yards, and one out of four shots with the same charge through the Warrior target, namely, a 4-1/2-inch solid plate, 18-inch backing, and 5/8-inch lining. The Horsfall 13-inch gun sent a round 270-pound shot, with 74 pounds of powder, entirely through the Warrior target at 200 yards, making an irregular hole about 2 feet in diameter. The same charge at 800 yards did not make a clean breach. The Whitworth shell burst in the backing of the same target has been referred to. Experiments on the effect of the 15-inch gun are now in progress. Its hollow 375-pound shot (3-inch walls) was broken without doing serious damage to 10-1/2-inch laminated armor backed with 18 inches of oak. The comparative test of solid and laminated armor has already been mentioned. The best 4-1/2-inch solid plates, well backed, are practically proof against the guns of English iron-clads, namely, 68-pounder smooth-bores and Armstrong 110-pounder rifles, the service charge of each being 16 pounds.

Rifling and Projectiles. The spherical shot, presenting a larger area to the action of the powder, for a given weight, than the elongated rifle-shot, has a higher initial velocity with a given charge; and all the power applied to it is converted into velocity, while a part of the power applied to the rifle-shot is employed in spinning it on its axis. But, as compared with the rifle-shot, at long ranges, it quickly loses, 1st, velocity, because it presents a larger area to the resisting air; 2d, penetration, because it has to force a larger hole through the armor; and 3d, accuracy, because the spinning of the rifle-shot constantly shifts from side to side any inaccuracy of weight it may have on either side of its centre, so that it has no time to deviate in either direction. Practically, however, iron-clad warfare must be at close quarters, because it is almost impossible to aim any gun situated on a movable ship's deck so that it will hit a rapidly moving object at a distance. It is believed by some authorities that elongated shot can be sufficiently well balanced to be projected accurately from smooth-bores; still, it is stated by Whitworth and others that a spinning motion is necessary to keep an elongated shot on end while passing through armor. On the whole, so far as penetrating armor is concerned, the theory and practice favor the spherical shot. But a more destructive effect than mere penetration has been alluded to,—the bursting of a shell within the backing of an iron-clad vessel. This can be accomplished only by an elongated missile with a solid head for making the hole and a hollow rear for holding the bursting charge. The rifle-shot used in America, and the Armstrong and some other European shot, are covered with soft metal, which in muzzle-loaders is expanded by the explosion so as to fill the grooves of the gun, and in breech-loaders is planed by the lands of the gun to fit the rifling,—all of which is wasteful of power. Whitworth employs a solid iron or steel projectile dressed by machinery beforehand to fit the rifling. But as the bore of his gun is hexagonal, the greater part of the power employed to spin the shot tends directly to burst the gun. Captain Scott, R.N., employs a solid projectile dressed to fit by machinery; but the surfaces of the lands upon which the shot presses are radial to the bore, so that the rotation of the shot tends, not to split the gun, but simply to rotate it in the opposite direction.

Mounting Heavy Ordnance, so that it may be rapidly manoeuvred on shipboard and protected from the enemy's shot, has been the subject of so much ingenious experiment and invention, that in a brief paper it can only be alluded to in connection with the following subject:—

THE STRUCTURE OF WAR-VESSELS.

Size. To attain high speed and carry heavy armor and armament, war-vessels must be of large dimensions. By doubling all the lineal dimensions of a vessel of given form, her capacity is increased eight fold, that is to say, she can carry eight times as much weight of engines, boilers, armor, and guns. Meanwhile her resistance is only quadrupled; so that to propel each ton of her weight requires but half the power necessary to propel each ton of the weight of a vessel of half the dimensions. High speed is probably quite as important as invulnerability. Light armor is a complete protection against the most destructive shells, and the old wooden frigates could stand a long battle with solid shot. But without superior speed, the most invulnerable and heavily armed vessel could neither keep within effective range of her enemy, nor run her down as a ram, nor retreat when overpowered. And a very fast vessel can almost certainly run past forts, as they are ordinarily situated, at some distance from the channel, without being hit. Indeed, the difficulty of hitting a moving object with heavy cannon is so great that slow wooden ships do not hesitate to encounter forts and to reduce them, for a moving ship can be so manoeuvred as to hit a stationary fort.

The disadvantages of large ships are, first, great draught. Although draught need not be increased in the same degree as length, a stable and seaworthy model cannot be very shallow or flat-bottomed. Hence the harbors in which very large vessels can manoeuvre are few, and there must be a light-draught class of vessels to encounter enemies of light draught, although they cannot be expected to cope very successfully with fast and heavy vessels. Second, a given sum expended exclusively in large vessels concentrates coast-defences upon a few points, while, if it is devoted to a greater number, consisting partly of small vessels, the line of defences is made more continuous and complete.

System of Protection. But the effectiveness of war-vessels need not depend solely upon their size. First, twice or thrice the power may be obtained, with the same weight of boilers and machinery, and with considerable economy, by carrying very much higher steam, employing simple surface-condensers, and maintaining a high rate of combustion and vaporization, in accordance with the best commercial-marine practice. Second, the battery may be reduced in extent, and the armor thus increased rather than diminished in thickness, with a given buoyancy. At the same time, the fewer guns may be made available in all directions and more rapidly worked, so that, on the whole, a small ship thus improved will be a match in every respect for a large ship as ordinarily constructed. Working the guns in small revolving turrets, as by Ericsson's or by Coles's plan, and loading and cooling them by steam-power, and taking up their recoil by springs in a short space, as by Stevens's plan, are improvements in this direction. The plan of elevating a gun above a shot-proof deck at the moment of aiming and firing, and dropping it for loading or protection by means of hydraulic cylinders, and the plan of placing a gun upon the top of the armor-clad portion of the ship, covering it with a shot-proof hood, and loading it from below, and the plan of a rotating battery, in which one gun is in a position to fire while the others attached to the same revolving frame are loading,—all these obviously feasible plans have the advantages of avoiding port-holes in the inhabited and vital parts of the vessel, of rendering the possible bursting of a gun comparatively harmless to the crew and ship, and of rapid manoeuvring, as compared with the turret system, besides all the advantages of the turret as compared with the casemate or old-fashioned broadside system. The necessity of fighting at close quarters has been remarked. At close quarters, musket-balls, grape, and shells can be accurately thrown into ordinary port-holes, which removes the necessity of smashing any other holes in the armor.

Protection at, and extending several feet below the water-line, is obviously indispensable around the battery of a vessel. It is valuable at other points, but not indispensable, provided the vessel has numerous horizontal and vertical bulkheads to prevent too great a loss of buoyancy when the vessel is seriously damaged between wind and water. Harbor-craft may be very low on the water, so that only a little height of protection is required. But it is generally supposed that sea-going vessels must be high out of water. Mr. Ericsson's practice, however, is to the contrary; and it may turn out that a low vessel, over which the sea makes a clean breach, can be made sufficiently buoyant on his plan, If high sides are necessary, the plan of Mr. Lungley, of London, may be adopted,—a streak of protection at the water-line, and another forming at the top of the battery at the top of the structure, with an intermediate unprotected space. A shot-proof deck at the water-line, and the necessary shot-proof passages leading from the parts below water to the battery, would of course be necessary.

Considering the many expedients for vastly increasing the thickness of armor, the idea, somewhat widely expressed, especially in England, that, in view of the exploits of Armstrong, Clay, and Whitworth, iron-protection must be abandoned, is at least premature. The manner in which the various principles of construction have thus far been carried out will be noticed in a brief.

Description of Prominent Iron-Clad Vessels. CLASS I. Classified with reference to the protection, the dimensions of the English Warrior and Black Prince are, length 380 feet, beam 58 feet, depth 33 feet, measurement 6,038 tons. Their armor (previously described) extends from the upper deck down to 5 feet below water, throughout 200 feet of the length amidships. Vertical shot-proof bulkheads joining the side armor form a box or casemate in the middle of the vessel, in which the 26 casemate-guns, mostly 68-pounder smooth-bores, are situated and fired through port-holes in the ordinary manner. Their speed on trial is about 14 knots,—at sea, about 12. The Defence and Resistance, of 275 feet length and 3,668 tons, and carrying 14 casemate-guns, are similarly constructed, though their speed is slow. All these vessels are built entirely of iron.

CLASS II. This differs from the first mentioned in having protection all around at the water-line. The New Ironsides, (American,) of 3,250 tons, 240 feet length, 58-1/2 feet beam, 28-1/2 feet depth, and 15 feet draught, and built of wood, has 4-1/2-inch solid armor with 2 feet backing, extending from the upper deck down to 4 feet below water, with vertical bulkheads like the Warrior, making a casemate 170 feet long, in which there are sixteen 11-inch smooth-bores and two 200-pounder Parrott rifles. A streak of armor, 4 feet below water and 3 feet above, runs from this forward and aft entirely around the vessel. Her speed is 8 knots. The Stevens Battery, (American,) 6,000 tons, constructed of iron and nearly completed, is 420 feet long, 53 feet wide, and 28 feet deep from the top of the casemate, and is iron-clad from end to end along the water-line. As proposed to the last Congress, the central casemate was to be about 120 feet long on the top, its sides being inclined 27-1/2 degrees from the horizon, and composed of 6-3/4 inches of iron, 14 inches of locust backing, and a half-inch iron lining. Upon the top of it, and to be loaded and manoeuvred from within it, were to be five 15-inch smooth-bores and two 10-inch rifled guns clad with armor. The actual horse-power of this ship being above 8,000, her speed would be much higher than that of any other war-vessel. Congress, declining to make an appropriation to complete this vessel, made it over to Mr. Stevens, who had already borne a considerable portion of its cost, and who intends to finish it at his own expense, and is now experimenting to still further perfect his designs. The Achilles (English) now building of iron, about the size of the Warrior, and of 6,039 tons, with a casemate 200 feet long holding 26 guns, belongs to this class. The Enterprise, 180 feet length, 990 tons, 4 casemate-guns, and the Favorite, 220 feet length, 2,168 tons, 8 casemate-guns, are building in England on the same plan. The Solferino and Magenta, (French,) built of wood, and a little longer than the Royal Oak, (see Class III.,) are iron-clad all round up to the main deck, and have two 13-gun casemates above it.

CLASS III. The Minotaur, Agincourt, and Northumberland, 6,621 tons, and 390 feet length, resembling, but somewhat larger than the Warrior, in all their proportions, and now on the stocks in England; are built of iron, and are to have 5-1/2-inch armor and 9-inch backing extending through their whole length from the upper deck to 5 feet below water, forming a casemate from stem to stern, to hold 40 broadside-guns. Five vessels of the Royal-Oak class, 4,055 tons, building in England, 277 feet long and 58-1/2 feet wide, are of wood, being partially constructed frigates adapted to the new service, and are iron-clad throughout their length and height to 5 feet below water. They are to carry thirty-two 68-pounders. The Hector and Valiant, 4,063 tons, and 275 feet long, are English iron vessels not yet finished. They are completely protected, and carry 30 casemate-guns. All the above vessels are to carry two or more Armstrong swivel-guns fore and aft. Four vessels of La Gloire class, (French,) 255 feet long and built of wood, resembling the Royal Oak, carry 34 guns, and are completely clad in 4-1/2-inch solid armor. Ten French vessels, of a little larger dimensions, are similarly constructed. The Galena (American) is of this class as to extent of protection. The quality of her armor has been referred to.

CLASS IV. Ships with Revolving Turrets. The Roanoke, (American,) a razeed wooden frigate of 4,500 tons, is 265 feet long, 521/2 feet wide, and 32 feet deep, and will draw about 21 feet, and have a speed of 8 to 9 knots. This and all the vessels to be referred to in this class are iron-clad from end to end, and from the upper deck to 4 or 5 feet below the water-line. The Roanoke's plates (solid) are 4-1/2 inches thick, except at the ends, where they are 3-1/2, and are backed with 30 inches of oak. She has three turrets upon her main-deck, each 21 feet in diameter inside, 9 feet high, and composed of 11 thicknesses of 1-inch plates. Her armament is six 15-inch guns, two in each turret. Of the Monitors, which are all constructed of iron, two now building are to be seagoing and very fast, and are to act as rams, like several of the other vessels described. One of these, the Puritan, is 340 feet long, 52 feet wide, and 22 feet deep, and will draw 20 feet. The armor of her hull, 10-1/2 inches thick, composed mostly of 1-inch plates and 3 feet of oak backing, projects beyond her sides by the amount of its thickness, and overhangs, forming a solid ram 16 feet long at the bow. The whole upper structure also overhangs the stern, and protects the screw and rudder. This vessel will carry two turrets, 28 feet in diameter inside, 9 feet high, and 2 feet thick, composed of 1-inch plates. Each turret contains two 15-inch guns. The other vessel, the Dictator, is similarly constructed, except that it has one turret, two guns, and 320 feet length. The upper (shot-proof) deck of these vessels is 2 feet out of water. The 18 smaller Ericsson vessels, several of which are ready for service, are 18 inches out of water, of light draught, and about 200 by 45 feet. Their side-armor, laminated, is 5 inches thick, upon 3 feet of oak. They have one turret, like those of the Roanoke, and carry one 15-inch gun and one 11-inch smooth-bore, or a 200-pounder rifle. The original Monitor is 174 by 44-1/2 feet, with 5-inch side-armor, and a turret 8 inches thick, 20 feet in diameter inside, and armed with two 11-inch guns. These vessels of Ericsson's design are each in fact two vessels: a lower iron hull containing boilers and machinery, and an upper scow overhanging the ends and sides, forming the platform for the turret, and carrying the armor. The Onondaga, now constructing, is an iron vessel of 222 feet length, 48 feet beam, and 13 feet depth, with 4-1/2-inch solid armor having no backing, and without the overhanging top-works of the Monitors. She has two turrets, like those of the Roanoke, and four 15-inch guns. Nearly all the vessels of Class IV. are without spars, and have a pilothouse about 6 feet in diameter and 6 feet high on the top of one of the turrets.

The English Royal Sovereign, 3,765 tons and 330 feet length, and the Prince Albert, 2,529 tons and the same length, are razeed wooden vessels. The former carries 5, and the latter 6 of Captain Coles's turrets with inclined sides, each turret designed for two 110-pounder breech-loading Armstrong guns. The class of iron vessels constructing to carry two of Coles's turrets are 175 feet long, having 42 feet beam, 24 feet depth, 17 feet draught, and 990 tons displacement. All these English vessels are much higher out of water than Ericsson's.

Besides these classes, there is the variety of iron-clad vessels called turtles, from their shape,—among them, the Keokuk (Whitney Battery) 159-1/2 feet long, with two stationary 11-inch gun turrets,—and a class of Western river vessels of very light draught and some peculiarities of construction. The latter resemble the Stevens Battery in the shape and position of their armor, but carry their guns within their casemates.

The Stevens Battery, the Onondaga, and the Keokuk have independent screw-propellers, which will enable them to turn on their own centres and to manoeuvre much more rapidly and effectively in action than vessels which, having but one propeller, cannot change their direction without changing their position, and are obliged to make a long circuit to change it at all. This subject is beginning to receive in Europe the attention which it merits.

CONCLUSIONS.

The direction of immediate improvement In ordnance for iron-clad warfare appears to be the abandonment of cast-iron, except as a barrel to be strengthened by steel; binding an inner tube with low-steel hoops having a successively increasing initial tension; and the use of spherical shot at excessive velocities by means of high charges of powder in bores of moderate diameters. The rifling of some guns is important, not so much to secure range or accuracy, as to fire elongated shells through armor.

The direction of improvement in ironclad vessels appears to be the concentration of armor at a few points and the protection of the remainder of the vessel from the entrance of water by a streak of armor at the water-line and numerous bulkheads, etc., in distinction from necessarily thin and inefficient plating over all; high speed without great increase of weight of the driving parts, by means of improved engines and boilers and high pressure; the production of tenacious iron in large, thick, homogeneous masses; and the rapid manoeuvring of heavy ordnance by machinery.

In justice to himself, the writer deems it proper to state, that within the limits of a magazine-article it has been impossible to enter into the details, or even to give an outline, of all the facts which have led him to the foregoing conclusions. In a more extended work about to be published by Van Nostrand, of New York, he has endeavored, by presenting a detailed account of English and American experiments, a description and numerous illustrations, derived mostly from personal observation, of all classes of ordnance and armor and their fabrication, and of iron-clad vessels and their machinery, and a resume of the best professional opinions, to add something at least usefully suggestive to the general knowledge on this subject.



ANDREW RYKMAN'S PRAYER.

Andrew Rykman's dead and gone: You can see his leaning slate In the graveyard, and thereon Read his name and date.

"Trust is truer than our fears," Runs the legend through the moss, "Cain is not in added years, Nor in death is loss."

Still the feet that thither trod, All the friendly eyes are dim; Only Nature, now, and God Have a care for him.

There the dews of quiet fall, Singing birds and soft winds stray: Shall the tender Heart of All Be less kind than they?

What he was and what he is They who ask may haply find, If they read this prayer of his Which he left behind.

* * * * *

Pardon, Lord, the lips that dare Shape in words a mortal's prayer! Prayer, that, when my day is done, And I see its setting sun, Shorn and beamless, cold and dim, Sink beneath the horizon's rim,— When this ball of rock and clay Crumbles from my feet away, And the solid shores of sense Melt into the vague immense, Father! I may come to Thee Even with the beggar's plea, As the poorest of Thy poor, With my needs, and nothing more.

Not as one who seeks his home With a step assured I come; Still behind the tread I hear Of my life-companion, Fear; Still a shadow deep and vast From my westering feet is cast, Wavering, doubtful, undefined, Never shapen nor outlined.

From myself the fear has grown, And the shadow is my own. Well I know that all things move To the spheral rhythm of love,— That to Thee, O Lord of all! Nothing can of chance befall: Child and seraph, mote and star, Well Thou knowest what we are; Through Thy vast creative plan Looking, from the worm to man, There is pity in Thine eyes, But no hatred nor surprise. Not in blind caprice of will, Not in cunning sleight of skill, Not for show of power, was wrought Nature's marvel in Thy thought. Never careless hand and vain Smites these chords of joy and pain; No immortal selfishness Plays the game of curse and bless: Heaven and earth are witnesses That Thy glory goodness is. Not for sport of mind and force Hast Thou made Thy universe, But as atmosphere and zone Of Thy loving heart alone. Man, who walketh in a show, Sees before him, to and fro, Shadow and illusion go; All things flow and fluctuate, Now contract and now dilate. In the welter of this sea, Nothing stable is but Thee; In this whirl of swooning trance, Thou alone art permanence; All without Thee only seems, All beside is choice of dreams. Never yet in darkest mood Doubted I that Thou wast good, Nor mistook my will for fate, Pain of sin for heavenly hate,— Never dreamed the gates of pearl Rise from out the burning marl, Or that good can only live Of the bad conservative, And through counterpoise of hell Heaven alone be possible.

For myself alone I doubt; All is well, I know, without; I alone the beauty mar, I alone the music jar.

Yet, with hands by evil stained, And an ear by discord pained, I am groping for the keys Of the heavenly harmonies; Still within my heart I bear Love for all things good and fair. Hand of want or soul in pain Has not sought my door in vain I have kept my fealty good To the human brotherhood; Scarcely have I asked in prayer That which others might not share. I, who hear with secret shame Praise that paineth more than blame, Rich alone in favors lent, Virtuous by accident, Doubtful where I fain would rest, Frailest where I seem the best, Only strong for lack of test,—. What am I, that I should press Special pleas of selfishness, Coolly mounting into heaven On my neighbor unforgiven? Ne'er to me, howe'er disguised, Comes a saint unrecognized; Never fails my heart to greet Noble deed with warmer beat; Halt and maimed, I own not less All the grace of holiness; Nor, through shame or self-distrust, Less I love the pure and just. Thou, O Elder Brother! who In Thy flesh our trial knew, Thou, who hast been touched by these Our most sad infirmities, Thou alone the gulf canst span, In the dual heart of man, And between the soul and sense Reconcile all difference, Change the dream of me and mine For the truth of Thee and Thine, And, through chaos, doubt, and strife, Interfuse Thy calm of life. Haply, thus by Thee renewed, In Thy borrowed goodness good, Some sweet morning yet in God's Dim, aeonian periods, Joyful I shall wake to see Those I love who rest in Thee, And to them in Thee allied Shall my soul be satisfied.

Scarcely Hope hath shaped for me What the future life may be. Other lips may well be bold; Like the publican of old, I can only urge the plea, "Lord, be merciful to me!" Nothing of desert I claim, Unto me belongeth shame. Not for me the crowns of gold, Palms, and harpings manifold; Not for erring eye and feet Jasper wall and golden street. What Thou wilt, O Father, give! All is gain that I receive. If my voice I may not raise In the elders' song of praise, If I may not, sin-defiled, Claim my birthright as a child, Suffer it that I to Thee As an hired servant be; Let the lowliest task be mine, Grateful, so the work be Thine; Let me find the humblest place In the shadow of Thy grace: Blest to me were any spot Where temptation whispers not. If there be some weaker one, Give me strength to help him on; If a blinder soul there be, Grant that I his guide may be. Make my mortal dreams come true With the work I fain would do; Clothe with life the weak intent, Let me be the thing I meant; Let me find in Thy employ Peace that dearer is than joy; Out of self to love be led And to heaven acclimated, Until all things sweet and good Seem my natural habitude.

* * * * *

So we read the prayer of him Who, with John of Labadie, Trod, of old, the oozy rim Of the Zuyder Zee.

Thus did Andrew Rykman pray. Are we wiser, better grown, That we may not, in our day, Make his prayer our own?



THE STRATHSAYS.

Mrs. Strathsay sat in her broad bower-window, looking down the harbor. A brave great window it was, and I mind me how many a dark summer's night, we two leaned over its edge and watched the soft flow of the River of the Cross, where its shadowy tide came up and lapped the stone foundations of that old house by the water-side,—I and Angus. Under us the rowers slipped the wherries and the yawls; in the channel the rafts floated down a slow freight from the sweet and savage pine-forests, and the fire they carried on their breasts, and the flames of their pitch-knots, threw out strange shadows of the steering raftsmen, and a wild bandrol of smoke flaring and streaming on the night behind them;—and yet away far up on the yonder side, beneath the hanging alders and the cedar-trees, the gundalows dropped down, great laden barges; and perhaps a lantern, hung high in the stern of some huge East-Indiaman at the wharves of the other town quite across the stream, showed us all its tracery and spires, dim webs of shadow stretched and woven against the solemn ground of the starlit sky, and taught us the limit of the shores. Ah, all things were sweet to us then! we were little but children,—Angus and I. And it's not children we are now, small's the pity! The joys of childhood are good, I trow; but who would exchange for them the proud, glad pulse of full womanhood?—not I. I mind me, too, that in those days the great world of which I used to hear them speak always seemed to me lying across the river, and over the fields and the hills, and away down and out by the skirts of the mystical sea; and on the morning when I set sail for Edinboro', I felt to be forever drawing nigher its skurry and bustle, its sins and pleasures and commotions.

We had no father,—Margray, or Effie, or Mary Strathsay, or I. He had brought his wife out from their home in Scotland to St. Anne's in the Provinces, and had died or ever I was born,—and I was the last of the weans. A high, keen spirit was his wife; she did not bend or break; a stroke that would have beggared another took no crumb from her cloth; she let the right in warehouses and wharves lie by, and lie by, and each year it paid her sterling income. None ever saw tear in those proud eyes of hers, when they brought in her husband dead, or when they carried him out; but every day at noon she went up into her own room, and whether she slept or whether she waked the two hours in that darkened place, there was not so much as a fly that sang in the pane to tell.

She was a fair, stately woman, taller than any of her girls, and with half the mind to hate them all because they were none of them a son. More or less the three were like her, lofty brows and shining hair and skin like morning light, the lave of them,—but as for me, I was my father's child. There's a portrait of him now, hangs on the chimney-pier: a slight man, and not tall,—the dark hair waves away on either side the low, clear brow,—the eyes deep-set, and large and dark and starry,—a carmine just flushing beneath the olive of the cheek,—the fine firm mouth just breaking into smiles; and I remember that that morning when I set sail for Edinboro', as I turned away from gazing on that face, and saw myself glinting like a painted ghost in the long dim mirror beside me, I said it indeed, and proudly, that I was my father's own child.

So she kissed us, Effie and me. Perhaps mine lingered the longer, for the color in my cheek was deeper tinct than Scotch, it was the wild bit of Southern blood that had run in her love's veins; when she looked at me, I gave her back hot phases of her passionate youth again,—so perhaps mine was the kiss that left the deeper dint.

Margray, and Mary Strathsay, had been back three years from school, and the one was just married,—and if she left her heart out of the bargain, what was that to me?—and the other was to reign at home awhile ere the fated Prince should come, and Effie and myself were to go over seas and take their old desks in the famous school at Edinboro'. The mother knew that she must marry her girls well, and we two younglings were sadly in Queen Mary Strathsay's way. Yes, Mrs. Strathsay lived for nought but the making of great matches for her girls; the grandees of the Provinces to-day sat down at her board and to-morrow were to pay her tribute, scot and lot; four great weddings she meant should one by one light up her hearth and leave it lonely with the ashes there. But of them all she counted on the last, the best, the noblest for Alice,—that was I.

Old Johnny Graeme was the partner in what had been my father's house, and for fifteen years it had gone prospering as never house did yet, and making Mrs. Strathsay bitterer; and Johnny Graeme, a little wizened warlock, had never once stopped work long enough to play at play and reckon his untold gold.

Just for that summer, too, some ships of the royal fleet anchored there off Campobello, and the Honorable Charles Seavern, third son of an Earl, and professional at his cups, swung them at his will, and made holiday meanwhile among the gay and willing folk of all the little towns around.

There was another yet, a youth growing up to fine estates away off beyond Halifax. His father sat in the Queen's own Parliament for the Colonies, had bent to the knightly accolade, and a change of ministry or of residence might any day create Sir Brenton peer; his mother had been Mrs. Strathsay's dearest friend:—this child who off and on for half his life had made her house his home and Alice his companion, while in the hearts of both children Mrs. Strathsay had cautiously planted and nursed the seed,—a winning boy, a noble lad, a lordly man.

If Margray had not married old Johnny Graeme, it would have broken Mrs. Strathsay's will; the will was strong; she did, she married him. If Mary, with her white moonsheen of beauty, did not bewitch the senses of Captain Seavern, it would break Mrs. Strathsay's pride; and few things were stronger than Mrs. Strathsay's pride,—unless 't were Mary's own. If Effie——but that's nothing to the purpose. If Alice did not become the bride of Angus Ingestre, it would break Mrs. Strathsay's heart. God forgive me! but I bethought me once that her heart was the weakest member in all her body.

So she kissed us, as I say, and we slid down the ten miles of river, and went sailing past the busy islands and over the broad deeps and out of the day and into the night, and then two little orphans cried themselves to sleep with their arms about each other's necks. After all, it was not much like my picture of the great world, this lonely sea, this plunging up from billow on to billow, this burrowing down in the heart of green-gloomed hollows, this rocking and creaking and straining, this buoyant bounding over the crests,—yet the freedom, the monotony, the wild career of the winds fired me; it set my blood a-tingle; I liked it. And then I thought of Angus, rocked to sleep each night, as he was now, in his ocean-cradle. But once at school, and the world was round me; it hummed up from the streets, it boomed down from the spires. I became a part of it, and so forgot it. To Effie there were ever stealing rumors of yet a world beyond, of courts and coronets, of satin shimmer and glitter of gems, but they glanced off from me,—and other than thus I have never yet found that great world that used to lie over the river.

We had been at school a happy while, and but for constant letters, and for the brief visit of Mrs. Strathsay, who had journeyed over the Atlantic for one last look at sweet home-things, and to see how all went with us, and then had flitted back again,—but for that, home would have seemed the veriest dream that ever buzzed in an idle brain: would so have seemed to other maidens, not to us, for the fibres of the Strathsay heart were threads that never wore thin or parted. Two twelvemonths more, and we should cross the sea ourselves at last; and wearying now of school a bit, all our visions centred in St. Anne's, and the merry doings, the goings and comings, that we heard of there; and it seemed to me as if home were to be the beginning of life, as erst it had seemed that in school we should find the world.

It was the vacation of the long summer term; there was packing and padlocking to go each on her way, and the long dormitories rang with shrill clamor. They all had a nest to seek. Effie was already gone away with her chief crony, whose lady-mother, a distant kinswoman of our own, fancied the girl's fair countenance. I was to join them in a week or two,—not yet, because I had wished to send home the screens painted on white velvet, and they wanted yet a sennight's work, and I knew Mrs. Strathsay would be proud of them before the crackle of the autumn fires. The maids ran hither and yon, and the bells pealed, and the knocker clashed, and the coaches rolled away over the stone pave of the court-yard, and there was embracing and jesting and crying, when suddenly all the pleasant hubbub stood still, for Miss Dunreddin was in the hall, and her page behind her, and she beckoned me from my post aloft on a foot-board, summoning the deserters before me and awarding them future expiations, amidst all manner of jeering and jinking and laughter.

A gentleman from the Provinces to see me in the little parlor: he had brought us letters from home, and after Miss Dunreddin had broken the seals she judged we might have them, and I was at liberty for an hour, and meantime Angus Ingestre awaited me. Angus! I sprang down the stairs, my cheeks aglow, my heart on my lips, and only paused, finger on lock, wondering and hesitating and fearing, till the door was flung open, and I drawn in with two hands shut fast on my own, and two eyes—great blue Ingestre eyes—looking down on me from the face so far above: for he towered like a Philistine.

"And is it Angus?" I cried. For how was I to know the boy I had left in a midshipman's jacket, in this mainmast of a man, undress-uniform and all?

"I've no need to ask, Is it Alice?" he answered. "The same little peach of a chin!"

"Nay, but, Angus,—'t will never do,—and I all but grown up!"

"Not my little maid any longer, then?"

But so trembling and glad was I to see him, that I dared no more words, for I saw the tears glistening in my eyelashes and blinding me with their dazzling flashes.

So he took me to a seat, and sat beside me, and waited a minute; and after that waiting it was harder to speak than it had been before, and every thought went clean out of my head, and every word, and I stared at my hands till I seemed to see clear through them the pattern of my dress, and at the last I looked up, and there he had been bending forward and scanning me all the while; and then Angus laughed, and caught up my hand and pretended to search it narrowly.

"Ah, yes, indeed," said he, "she is reading the future in her palm, reading it backward, and finding out what this Angus Ingestre has to do with her fate!"

"Nay, but,"——said I, and then held fast again.

"Here's a young woman that's keen to hear of her home, of her sisters, of Queen Mary Strathsay, and of Margray's little Graeme!"

"What do I care for Johnny Graeme? the little old man!"

"What, indeed? And you'll not be home a day and night before you'll be tossing and hushing him, and the moon'll not be too good for him to have, should he cry for it!"

"Johnny Graeme?"

"No. Angus Graeme!"

"Oh!—Margray has a son? Why didn't you tell me before?"

"When you were so eager to know!"

"It's all in my letters, I suppose. But Margray has a son, and she's named it for you, and her husband let her?"

"'Deed, he wasn't asked."

"Why not?"

"Come, child, read your letters."

"Nay, I've but a half-hour more with you; that was the second quarter struck; I'll read them when you're gone.—Why not?"

"Johnny Graeme is dead."

That sobered me a thought.

"And Margray?" I asked.

"Poor Margray,—she feels very badly."

"You don't mean to say"——

"That she cared for him? But I do."

"Now, Angus Ingestre, I heard Margray tell her mother she'd liefer work on the roads with a chain and ball than marry him! It's all you men know of women. Love Johnny Graeme! Oh, poor man, rest his soul! I'm sore sorry for him. He's gone where there's no gold to make, unless they smelt it there; and I'm not sure but they do,—sinsyne one can see all the evil it's the root of, and all the woe it works,—and he bought Margray, you know he did, Angus!"

"It's little Alice talking so of her dead brother!"

"He's no brother of mine; I never took him, if Margray did. Brother indeed! there's none such,—unless it's you, Angus!" And there all the blood flew into my cheeks, and they burned like two fires, and I was fain to clap my palms upon them.

"No," said Angus. "I'm not your brother, Ailie darling, and never wish to be,—but"——

"And Margray?" I questioned, quickly,—the good Lord alone knew why. "Poor Margray! tell me of her. Perhaps she misses him; he was not, after all, so curst as Willy Scott. Belike he spoke her kindly."

"Always," said Angus, gnawing in his lip a moment ere the word. "And the child changed him, Mary Strathsay says. But perhaps you're right; Margray makes little moan."

"She was aye a quiet lass. Poor Johnny!—I'm getting curst myself. Well, it's all in my letters. But you, Angus dear, how came you here?"

"I? My father came to London; and being off on leave from my three years' cruise, I please myself in passing my holiday, and spend the last month of it in Edinboro', before rejoining the ship."

All my moors and heather passed like a glamour. The green-wood shaws would be there another year,—Angus was here to-day. I cast about me, and knew that Miss Dunreddin would speed away to take her pleasure, and there'd be none left but the governess and the painting-mistress, with a boarder or two like myself,—and as for the twain, I could wind them round my thumb.

"Oh, Angus," I said, breathlessly, "there's Arthur's Seat, and the palaces, and the galleries and gardens,—it'll be quite as good as the moors; there'll be no Miss Dunreddin, and you can stay here all the leelang simmer's day!"

He smiled, as he answered,—

"And I suppose those scarlet signals at the fore signify"——

"Nothing!"

"Fast colors, I see."

"It's my father's own color, and I'm proud of it,—barring the telltale trouble."

"You're proud," said he, absently, standing up to go, "that you are the only one of them all that heirs him?"

"Not quite. It's the olive in my father's cheek that darkened his wife's yellow curls into Mary Strathsay's chestnut ones. And she's like me in more than that, gin she doesn't sell hersel' for siller and gowd."

"I'll tell you what. Mrs. Strathsay is over-particular in speech. She'll have none of the broad Highland tongue about her. It's a daily struggle that she has, not to strike Nurse Nannie dumb, since she has infected you all with her dialect. A word in time. Now I must go. To-morrow night I'll come and take you to the play, Miss Dunreddin or no Miss Dunreddin. But sing to me first. It's a weary while since I used to hear that voice crooning itself to sleep across the hall with little songs."

So I sang the song he chose, "My love, she's but a lassie yet"; and he took the bunch of bluebells from my braids, and was gone.

The next night Angus was as good as his word. Miss Dunreddin was already off on her pleasuring, he took the gray little governess for duenna, and a blither three never sat out a tragedy, or laughed over wine and oysters in the midst of a garden with its flowers and fountains afterwards. 'T was a long day since the poor little woman had known such merrymaking; and as for me, this playhouse, this mimicry of life, was a new sphere. We went again and again,—sometimes the painting-mistress, too; then she and the governess fell behind, and Angus and I walked at our will. Other times we wandered through the gay streets, or we went up on the hill and sat out the sunsets, and we strolled through the two towns, high and low. The days sped, the long shine of the summer days, and, oh, my soul was growing in them like a weed in the sun!

It never entered my happy little thoughts all this time that what was my delight might yet be Angus's dole; for, surely, a school-girl is so interesting to no one else as herself, while she continually comes upon all the fresh problems in her nature. So, when a day passed that I heard no step in the hall, no cheery voice rousing the sleepy echoes with my name, I was restless enough. Monday, Tuesday,—no Angus. I ought to have thought whether or no he had found some of his fine friends, and if they had no right to a fragment of his time; yet I was but a child. The third day dawned and passed, and at length, sitting there among the evening shadows in the long class-room, a little glumly, the doors clanged as of old, a loud, laughing sentence was tossed up to the little gray governess at the stair-head, then, three steps at a time, he had mounted, and was within,—and what with my heart in my throat and its bewildered beating, I could not utter a word. I but sprang to the window and made as if I had been amusing myself there: I would have no Angus Ingestre be thinking that he was all the world to me, and I nought to him.

"A little ruffled," said he, at the saucy shake of my head. "Well, I sha'n't tell you where I've been. I've the right to go into the country for a day, have I not? What is it to Alice Strathsay how often I go to Loch Rea? There's something Effie begged me to get you!" And he set down a big box on the table.

So, then, he had been to see Effie. It was fair enough, and yet I couldn't help the jealous pang. I wouldn't turn my head, though I did wonder what was in the big box, but, holding out my hand backward, I said,—

"Well, it's no odds where you've been, so long's you're here now. Come and lean out of the window by me,—it's old times,—and see the grand ladies roll by in their coaches, some to the opera, some to the balls."

"Why should I watch the grand ladies roll by, when there's one so very much grander beside me," he said, laughing, but coming. And so we stood together there and gazed down on the pretty sight, the beautiful women borne along below in the light of the lamps, with their velvets, their plumes, and their jewels, and we made little histories for them all, as they passed.

"They are only the ugly sisters," said Angus, at length. "But here is the true Cinderella waiting for her godmother. Throw your cape over your hair, Ailie dear; the dew falls, and you'll be taking cold. There, it's the godmother herself, and you'll confess it, on seeing what miracles can be worked with this little magic-lantern of yours. Come!" and he proceeded to open the box.

But I waited a minute still; it was seldom the sumptuous coaches rolled through this by-way which they had taken to-night in their gay procession, since the pavers had left the broad street beyond blocked up for the nonce, and I liked to glimpse this little opening into a life just beyond my sphere.

"You are shivering in your thin frock at the window, Miss Strathsay," said the little gray governess.

"Come here, Ailie, and hold the candle," said Angus. "Effie has great schemes of terror with this in the dormitories, o' nights. There!" and he whirled the lighted match out of the window.

Just then I turned, the little flame fell on my muslin sleeve,—a cloud of smoke, a flash, a flare, the cape round my face soared in blaze, it seemed that I was wrapt in fire!

Angus caught me on the instant, crushed the burning things with his fingers, had his coat round me, had all drenched in the water that the governess had raced after, and then I knew no more.

So the women put me to bed, while Angus brought the surgeon; then they forbade him the room, and attended to my wants; but all night long he paced the halls and heard my moans, and by daybreak I was stupefied. He waited a week, but they would not suffer him to see me, and then his leave of absence had expired.

One night I woke; I felt that the room was darkly rich with the star-lighted gloom, but I could see nothing, for all the soft, cool linen folds; and lying there half-conscious for a time, I seemed to feel some presence in the door-way there.

"Angus, is that you?" I asked.

"Oh, Ailie darling!" he cried, and came forward and fell on his knees by my side, and covered my hands with his tears.

"Poor Angus!" I said, in my muffled way, and I tried half to rise, and I was drawing away a hand that I might dash the tears off his face.

Then of a sudden it came over me in one great torrid flush, and I fell back without a word.

But at the moment, the little gray governess came in again from her errand, and he went. 'T was no use his waiting, though he lingered still a day or two in hopes to see me; but my head was still on my pillow. His time was more than up, he must to the ship, so he left me store of messages and flowers and glass-bred grapes, and was off.

Time wore away, I got about again, and all was as before, long ere the girls came back, or Miss Dunreddin. I went near no moors, I looked no more out of my window, I only sat on the stool by my bedside and kept my face hid in the valances; and the little gray governess would sit beside me and cheer me, and tell me it was not so bad when all was said, and beauty was but little worth, and years would efface much, that my hair was still as dark and soft, my eyes as shining, my——But all to what use? Where had flown the old Strathsay red from my cheek, where that smooth polish of brow, where——I, who had aye been the flower of the race, the pride of the name, could not now bide to brook my own glance in the glass.

But the worst of it all would be, I thought,—not recking the worse to come,—when the girls flocked back. How I dreaded it, how I sought to escape their mock and go home, poor fool! but the little gray governess saw them all first, I must believe, for there was not a quip or a look askance, and they treated me as bairns treat a lamb that has tint its mother. And so seeing I had lost my fair skin, I put myself to gain other things in its place, and worked hard at my stents, at my music, my books. I grew accustomed to things, and would forget there had been a change, and, being young, failed to miss the being bonny; and if I did not miss it, who should? and they all were so kind, that the last year of school was the happiest of the whole. Thus the time drew near my eighteenth summer, and Miss Dunreddin had heard of a ship bound our way from Glasgow, and we were to leave the town with all its rare old histories, and speed through nights and days of seafaring to St. Anne's by the water-side, to the old stone house with its windows overhanging the River of the Cross.

So the old brig slid lazily up the river, beneath the high and beauteous banks, and as between the puffs of wind we lay there in the mid-channel, the mate,—a dark, hawk-eyed man, at whom Effie liked well to toss a merry mock, and with whom, sometimes stealing up, she would pace the deck in hours of fair weather,—a man whose face was like a rock that once was smitten with sunshine, never since,—a sad man, with a wrathful lip even when he spoke us fair,—the mate handed me his glass and bade me look, while he went to the side and bent over there with Effie, gazing down into the sun-brown, idle current. And I pointed it,—and surely that was the old stone gable in its woodbines,—and surely, as we crept nearer, the broad bower-window opened before me,—and surely a lady sat there, a haughty woman with the clustered curls on her temple, her needle poised above the lace-work in the frame, and she gazing dreamily out, out at the water, the woods, the one ship wafting slowly up,—shrouds that had been filled with the airs of half a hemisphere, hull that had ere now been soaked in spicy suns and summers,—and all the glad tears gushed over my eyes and darkened me from seeing. So, as I said, Mrs. Strathsay sat in her broad bower-window looking down the harbor, and a ship was coming up, and Effie and I stood on its deck, our hearts full of yearning. Mine was, at least, I know. And I could but snatch the glass up, every breathing, as we went, and look, and drop it, for it seemed as if I must fly to what it brought so near, must fly to fling my arms about the fair neck bending there, to feel the caressing finger, to have that kiss imprint my cheek once more,—so seldom her lips touched us!