tween them. The coal had been pulverized and
scattered in all directions, and other internal damage inflicted.
Nevertheless, the watertight bulkheads remained intact, and by confining
the influx of water to a single compartment so much buoyancy was
preserved that, though the ship heeled over to starboard and was maimed,
she remained afloat, and might have continued to fight her guns,
provided always that no injury had been sustained by her machinery, a
point which these experiments do not touch. Crippled, however, as she
was, it was thought at the time (and the probability was strengthened by
subsequent examination of the ship in dock) that the coal, instead of
being a protection to the double bottom, had in reality proved a source
of weakness by receiving the energy of the explosion from the outer
plating and communicating it to the inner plating, and so distributing
it throughout the submerged portions of the hulk.

The question was sufficiently important to demand an experimental
solution; hence the _raison d'etre_ of the present demonstration. The
double bottom, which is about 21/2 ft. deep, was consequently kept empty,
and the torpedo placed in immediate contact with it in such a manner
that, being overhung by the contour of the hull, the ship would feel the
full force of the upward as well as the lateral energy of the charge. On
other accounts the importance of the experiment was obvious, for,
although it had been ascertained that torpedo nets were capable of
protecting a battle ship from the bursts of the heaviest locomotive and
outrigger charges, it might happen, of course, that the nets would be
rent or displaced by shell fire or swept away by a grazing ram or even
attacked by a double torpedo, the second passing through the gashes made
by the explosion of the first in any case. It was, therefore, of urgent
necessity that the effect of a torpedo bursting in immediate contact
with a ship's bottom should be practically and clearly determined. The
charge on June 13 was fired just before 5 p.m. in the wake of the
boilers, and it was soon perceived that something of a fatal character
had taken place from the appearance of coal dust sweeping up through the
hold. The report had not the dull boom to which the spectators had
become accustomed. Instead of this, the gun cotton exploded with a
sharp, angry, whistling noise, while the manner in which the mud was
churned up showed that the force of the rebound was terrific. T