ng sides. Logically it follows, at the same moment in which
the line ahead became definitively the order for battle, there
was established the distinction between the ships 'of the line,'
alone destined for a place therein, and the lighter ships meant
for other uses."

If to these we add the considerations which led to making the
line-of-battle a close-hauled line, we have the problem fully worked
out. But the chain of reasoning was as clear two hundred and fifty
years ago as it is now; why then was it so long in being worked out?
Partly, no doubt, because old traditions--in those days traditions of
galley-fighting--had hold of and confused men's minds; chiefly because
men are too indolent to seek out the foundation truths of the
situation in their day, and develop the true theory of action from its
base up. As a rare instance of clear-sightedness, recognizing such a
fundamental change in conditions and predicting results, words of
Admiral Labrousse of the French navy, written in 1840, are most
instructive. "Thanks to steam," he wrote, "ships will be able to move
in any direction with such speed that the effects of collision may,
and indeed must, as they formerly did, take the place of projectile
weapons and annul the calculations of the skilful manoeuvrer. The ram
will be favorable to speed, without destroying the nautical qualities
of a ship. As soon as one power shall have adopted this terrible
weapon, all others must accept it, under pain of evident inferiority,
and thus combats will become combats of ram against ram." While
forbearing the unconditional adhesion to the ram as the controlling
weapon of the day, which the French navy has yielded, the above brief
argument may well be taken as an instance of the way in which
researches into the order of battle of the future should be worked
out. A French writer, commenting on Labrousse's paper, says:--

"Twenty-seven years were scarce enough for our fathers, counting
from 1638, the date of building the 'Couronne,' to 1665, to pass
from the tactical order of the line abreast, the order for
galleys, to that of the line ahead. We ourselves needed
twenty-nine years from 1830, when the first steamship was
brought into our fleet, to 1859, when the application of the
principle of ram-fighting was affirmed by laying down the
'Solferino' and the 'Magenta' to work a revolution in the
contrary direction; so true it is that trut