situated
at the east end, in the center, and at the west end. On the west there were
mounted 20 modern guns of great size and power, and there were 7 others at
the east end.

Although the Egyptians fought bravely, they did very little harm to the
English fleet, while on the second day the defense was silenced altogether.
Following the bombardment--as in Paris--came the reign of mob law, doing
more harm than the shells had done; and it is a possibility that every such
bombardment would be followed by such an overthrow--at least temporary--of
all forms of law and order.

The ships that had silenced the Alexandria batteries--which had 27 heavy
guns more than we have--could reach our coasts in 10 or 12 days, and we
would have nothing to meet them.

Armor-clad casemates are beginning to take the place of masonry. A
tremendous thickness of masonry is built up to the very embrasures for the
guns in the steel-clad turrets. This (the Gruson) system has been adopted
by Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, and Italy.

In 1882 England had 434 heavy modern guns behind armored shore batteries;
besides these at home, she had 92 in her colonies, of which 13 were in
Halifax and 11 in Bermuda--for our express benefit.

What we have are brick and stone casemates and earthworks. A sample granite
casemate, with iron-lined embrasure, was built at Fortress Monroe, and 8
shots were fired at it from a 12 in. rifle converted from an old 15 in.
smooth bore. This gun develops only 3,800 foot tons of energy--a mere
nothing compared with the 62,000 foot tons of the English and German 110
ton guns.

General Abbott showed most conclusive proof of the worthlessness of masonry
forts in pictures showing the effect of the shots. The massive 8 feet
thickness of granite was pierced and battered till it looked like a ruin.
Not a man inside would have been left alive.

He also showed a "disappearing" gun in an earthwork, the gun recoiling
below the level of the parapet and being run up to a firing position by a
counterweight. In 1878 Congress stopped all appropriations for defenses,
and nothing had been done since.

General Abbott said that we needed submarine mines or fixed torpedoes,
which should be thickly interspersed about the channel and be exploded by
an electric battery on shore. To prevent these torpedoes from being
exploded by the enemy, the surface over them should be covered by plenty of
guns. Heavy guns and mortars were needed to resist a