have contradict many of the proving ground theories. Thus we have the
records of shot going through 25 inches of iron or 25 feet of concrete
on the proving ground; but such actual service tests as the
bombardment of Fort Sumter, Fort Fisher, and the forts at Alexandria
contradict this entirely, and indicate that, except for the moral
effect, our old forts, with modern guns in them and some additional
strengthening at their weaker points, would answer all purposes so far
as bombardment from fleets is concerned. This is not saying that the
forts are good enough in their present condition, but simply that they
can readily be made far superior in strength, both offensive and
defensive, to any fleet that could possibly be provided at anything
like the same expense, or in fact at any expense that would be
justified by the condition of our treasury, either past, present, or
probable future. It might be added that a still more serious
difficulty in the way of the military engineer, so far as practice and
its consequent experiences are concerned, is that for many years past,
until quite recently, there have been no funds either for experiments
or actual work on fortifications, so that very little has been done on
them during the last twenty years.

Without going into the question of the necessity for sea coast
defenses, we may assume that an enemy is likely to come into one of
our harbors and that it is desirable to keep him out. What provisions
must be made to accomplish this, i.e., to secure the safety of the
harbors and the millions of dollars' worth of destructible property
concentrated at the great trade centers that are usually located upon
those harbors? We must first take a look at the enemy and see what he
is like before we can decide what will be needed to repel his attack.
For this purpose we need not draw on the imagination, but we may
simply examine some of the more recent armadas sent to bombard
seaports. For example, the fleet sent by Great Britain to bombard the
Egyptian city of Alexandria, in 1882. This fleet consisted of eight
heavy ironclad ships of from 5,000 to 11,000 tons displacement and
five or six smaller vessels; and the armament of this squadron
numbered more than one hundred guns of all calibers, from the sixteen
inch rifle down to the seven inch rifle, besides several smaller guns.
But this fleet represented only a small fraction of England's naval
power. During some recent evolutions she turned out