A Monster Ironclad

lhe Aew.ïork Horald publishes tho following account of the launching of theTrafal;iur,atPortsmouth,Eng!and: In the presence ot all the Loida of the Admirality andan immense concourse of people, Poon after noon, a war ship of excepüonally powerful typewas launched at Portsmouth to be added to the royal navy as the Trafalgar. She will be largo and considerably inore formidable than any other Britisli ironclad at present alloat. Although some huge Italian warships exceed her in tonnaae displacement and in heavy gun power not one oí them is so well protected as the Trafatigar will be wlien finished. She will displace 11,940 tons of water, and will have cost not far short of L900,000 (about $4,500,000). As she lies this morning she has cost less than L800,000, and only 5,200 tons of steel and iron have been workina into her massive huil. She is 345 feet long and 73 feet broad. Het coal stowage is 900 tons in fore and aft bunkers. Her armament is to consist of four 13 1-2 inch ton breechloading guns, eight 5-inch breech-loadïng guns, six 36 pounder qnick-firing j?uns, eight 6-pounder and eleven 5pounder Hotehkiss quick-firing guns, machine, boat and field guns and twentyfour Whitehead torpedoes. The turret guns will fire projectiles weighing 1,250 pounds, with a powder chai-ye of C30 pounds, and will train throuah an anglo of 270 degree. The eight 5-inch guns will be mounted on the upper deck between the turrets, and will be protected on the sides of ■the ship from ritió fire by two thicknesses of half-inch plating.and at each end of the battery by arniored bulkheads ono inch thick, fitted upon six inches of backing and an inner skin. These guns will train throughsixty decrees on each side of the beam. Tho eight six-pounder Hotchkiss guns will fire from the spar deck, but the three pounder guns will bo distributed between the .spar deck, the bridge, the stern parts and the military ports. There are eight torpedo tubes, tour above and four below the water line, the latter beingfixed tubes. Theabove water tubes are protected from machine gun fire by two inch plating. The vessel will be fitted with twin screws, each driven by an independent sst of triple expansión engines, with thvee vertical cylinders of a coUective power of six thousand horses for each set. The weight of this machinery ís to be about one thousand and thirty tons. The crank and propeller shafting are hollow and are made of compressed steel. The diameter of the screw propellers will be about sixteen feet. Another turret ship, exactly likeher and of her dimensions, is building at Pembroke, to be called the Nile. The Daily New3, commenting on the event, says: "It is not improbable tb at these two monsters will be the last of our very big ironclads. No others of the first class size have, during the past twoyears, been laid down, and among naval constructora the conviction is now rapidly gaining ground that, for practical purposes, vessels ol moderate tonnage - always provided they are of great speed - will be found more useful than leviathans. Our present ignorance of the realities of modern naval warfare run us into dangerous risks by investing, in the construction of single ironclads, sums which otherwisedisbursed would provide a wholeflotillaoffastcruisers, armoured gunboats and swift torpedo vessels."