Page:The Development of Navies During the Last Half-Century.djvu/69

fit to be employed as transports for the conveyance of troops and stores during war. However, the Admiralty decided to employ those which were being built as troop ships. In one or two others which were completed the armament was removed from the main deck, and timber substituted for iron in the upper works, behind which a few light guns were placed. Considering the present almost universal adoption of iron and steel for naval architecture, the foregoing events appear to me to have no little interest I have not dwelt upon the defects of the substances employed, such as cast-iron shot, and probably the inferior nature of the plates. No doubt both had an important bearing on the results obtained, but I will pass on to the revival of iron for warship construction. As practically in England this occurred simultaneously with the introduction of armour, I shall deal with them together in reference to the creation of our modern navy. With many inventions it is difficult to assign to any country or individual either actual discovery or practical application. In most cases the two operations are distinct, and separated by a considerable interval of time. This is certainly true as regards both the idea of protecting ships with an external casting of iron and its actual use. The first idea is, I think, due to Colonel Paixhans, the French officer who was mainly instrumental in substituting horizontal shell fire in place of shot. In 1825 he expressed an opinion that line-of-battle ships might be cuirassed against cannon shot by sacrificing a tier of guns, and that seven or eight inches of iron would effect