results that only one half of their
guns can be directed on an enemy, whether ahead or astern. The
_Inflexible_ has her turrets on each side--the fore-turret on the
port-side, the after-turret on the starboard. She can thus use the
whole of her guns against an enemy _at the same time_, whether it be
ahead or astern.

It will be seen that the thickness of the armour-plating with which the
_Inflexible_ is protected is enormous; and yet this thickness of iron
has been pierced. The question, then, that immediately suggests itself
is, _Can_ a vessel be constructed to carry much heavier armour-plating
than this? A recent writer in the _Times_ declares not. "So far as the
exigencies of the navy are concerned," he says, "the limit of weight
seems to have already been reached, for the simple reason that the
buoyancy of our ironclads cannot with safety be further diminished by
the burden of heavier armour and armaments."

The following very graphic description of the interior of a turret-ship
was written by an eye-witness of the scene described. It is an extract
from a narrative supplied to the author of "The Sea: its Stirring Story
of Adventure and Peril," from which we take it. The vessel described
was the _Miantonoma_, an American ironclad turret-ship.

"You ascend again through a trap-door, and find yourself in a circular
room, some twelve feet in diameter, padded from top to bottom like the
interior of a carriage. By your side is a huge mass of iron. You are
inside the turret. A glimmering lamp sheds its feeble light on the
moving forms around you, and from below comes the faint whispering of
the men, until the trap is shut and you are again in utter silence.

"`_Prepare_!' The gunner's mate stands on your toes, and tells you to
lean forward and thrust your tongue out of your mouth. You hear the
creaking of machinery. It is a moment of intense suspense. Gradually a
glimmer of light--an inch--a flood! The shield passes from the opening;
the gun runs out. A flash, a roar--a mad reeling of the senses, and
crimson clouds flitting before your eyes--a horrible pain in your ears,
a sense of oppression on your chest, and the knowledge that you are not
on your feet--a whispering of voices blending with the concert in your
ears--a darkness before your eyes--and you feel yourself plump up
against the padding, whither you have been thrown by the violence of the
concussion.

"Before you have recovered sufficiently to