lb. of prismatic brown powder, the missile weighing 1,250 lb.
or about one-half less than the weight of the shot used with the 110
ton gun. It will thus be seen that the ordnance of the Benbow can
penetrate armor that would defy the attack of the guns of the Empress.
It should be said, however, that the heavy artillery of the latter
vessel is capable of penetrating any armor at present afloat, and is
carried at a much greater height above the designed load water line
than in any existing battle ship, either in the British or foreign
navies. The armor being of less weight, too, enables the new ship, and
others of her class, to carry an auxiliary armament of unprecedented
weight and power.

The Empress will be lighted throughout by electricity, the
installation comprising some 600 lights, and will be provided with
four 25,000 candle power search lights, each of which will be worked
by a separate dynamo. The ship has been built from the designs of Mr.
W.H. White, C.B., Director of Naval Construction, and will be fitted
out for the use of an admiral, and when commissioned her complement of
officers and men will number 700.--_Industries._

* * * * *

THE "IRON GATES" OF THE DANUBE.

The work of blowing up the masses of rock which form the dangerous
rapids known as the Iron Gates, on the Danube, was inaugurated on
September 15, 1890, when the Greben Rock was partially blown up by a
blast of sixty kilogrammes of dynamite, in the presence of Count
Szapary, the Hungarian premier; M. Baross, Hungarian minister of
commerce; Count Bacquehem, Austrian minister of commerce; M. Gruitch,
the Servian premier; M. Jossimovich, Servian minister of public works;
M. De Szogyenyi, chief secretary in the Austro-Hungarian ministry of
foreign affairs; and other Hungarian and Servian authorities. Large
numbers of the inhabitants had collected on both banks of the Danube
to witness the ceremony, and the first explosion was greeted with
enthusiastic cheers. The history of this great scheme was told at the
time the Hungarian Parliament passed the bill on the subject two years
ago. It is known that the Roman Emperor Trajan, seventeen centuries
ago, commenced works, of which traces are still to be seen, for the
construction of a navigable canal to avoid the Iron Gates.

For the remedy of the obstruction in the Danube, much discussed of
late years, there were two rival systems--the French, which proposed
to