PORT OF ONEHUNGA.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVII, Issue 4357, 2 August 1871, Page 2

PORT OF ONEHUNGA.

Departures. Ltraa, Col. Okov. p.s., for Wellington.

The Iron-clads op the United States. — The iron-clad war vessels of the United States navy now number fifty-one vessels of all classes. Most of these, we believe, are armed with smoeth-bore caat-iron guns. The recent Prussian war has demonstrated, beyond all question, the superioiity of caststeel breech-loading ordnance. A vessel armed with these might stand out of range of the heaviest guns of our iron-clads, and yet drive shot through them. The American Government is behind the age in respect to effective ordnance. It has not yet commenced tho manufacture of steel breechloaders.

Admiral Inglefield's Hydrostatic Gear. — The Standard 3ays: — " The Monarch has been ordered to Portsmouth to fit with the hydrostatic screw-starting gear s de■cribed at length a few weeks since in our columns. We are pleased also to learn that an order has been given by the Admiralty for the fitting the Agincourt with steering gear upon this principle, and that screwotarting apparatus will be added after that in the Monarch has been practically tested. The engine designed for the Agincourt is more simple than those fitted some time ago in the Achilles and in the Fethi Bulend ; and the improved steering gear, which may be placed in any part of the ship, is a simple tiller, similar to a boat's tiller, about thrte feet long, the communication between it and the hydrostatic engine being by means of a small pipe leading from the tiller to a slide valve of very ingenious arrangement recently patented. It is an adaptation by which the rudder itself, when it has taken as much helm as the small steering tiller has indicated, shuts off the supply ralve, and thus holds the rudder rigidly at the desired angle. There is an arrangement provided by which, when a sea strikes the rudder, it will give at a certain load pressure and then return to its original position. The hydrostatic engine, which is placed on the keel of the ship, and is actuated by the pressure of water outside the vessel, delivers a column of water at a force of 1001b. on tht square inch at the ram within tyro feefc of the rudder-head. This ram carries the short two-foot tiller, which is the substitute in Admiral Inglefield's steering apparatus for the ordinary long 19- or 20 - foot tiller. The slide which turns the high-pressure water to either end of the ram is worked by an oiltube communication with the three-foot tiller on the bridge or fighting-turret. The working model of the slide and ram was exhibited at the Royal Society soiree on Saturday, where its simplicity and ingenuity were much admired. The hydrostatic engine, to the perfecting and development of which Admiral Inglefield has devoted so many years of thought and labour, at no inconsiderable personal outlay, is, we understand, about to be still further practically developed for the turning of turrets and other operations of an intermittent nature on shipboard, and we sincerely hope that the report which has been current that the gallant officer will be shortly called upon to hoist his flag on shipboard may be true, for the slightnesa of the rewards which it is the practice of the Government to bestow on the mass of practical inventors has received so far another illustration in this case. During the five years the Admiral has been on half-pay he has fitted three of her Majesty's vessels with his hydrostatic gear, has produced the naval tactic-board now in use in the Mediterranean and Channel Fleets and the Flying Squadron, and has also compiled an entirely new code of signals for the Turkish Navy."