THE TURRET SHIPS OF THE ENGLISH NAVY.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5299, 5 February 1879, Page 3

THE TURRET SHIPS OF THE ENGLISH NAVY.

"We are beginning to learn something practical about our heavy turret-ships," remarks the Daily News of November 7. {t The first of these, the Devastation, has just returned to Portsmouth yard, after a long spell of service in the Mediterranean. The Beco'nd, a sister ship, the Thunderer, has arrived at Malta, to take the place of the Devastation. A third, the Dreadnought, has already completed the trials of machinery and armament, and is to be commissioned at the end of the month ; while the fourth, and most formidable of all, the Inflexible, is to make a six hours' run of her machinery in Stokes Bay next week. Each carries two turrets, in which are a pair of guns, consequently the whole armament of the ship is but four cannon. >■ . In the Devastation there are a pair of 35---ton guns in one turret, and a pair of 25---ton guns in the other, so that for a long time past ahe has carried heavier metal than any other baitle-ship in the Mediterranean. The Thuiderer, which ha 3 now replacedheratMalta,carries a pair of 35- ton guns in one turret, and a pair of 38-ton gunsin the other, firing 7001 b shotandshell The Dreadnought, the third of the series, is armed with four 38-ton guns, which, however, fire 8001 b projectiles ; while the last, the Inflexible, is to receive on board the four 80-ton guns now being finished at Woolwich, capable, it is said, of projecting three-quarter-ton shot and shell. Nor is it only in respect to' their guns and armour that the ships differ. The Devastation works all her guns by hand, while on board the Thunderer this is done in the case only of one of the turrets, the pair of cannons in the other being sponged and loaded by hydraulic machinery. In the Dreadnought, all the guns, again, are worked by hydraulic loading gear, and this, too, will be the case with the heavy weapons on board the Inflexible. This last-mentioned ship, finally, differs in one other important respect from the others. Instead of the two turrets being placed in a line with her deck, on board the Inflexible they are erected fore and aft in a diagonal manner. The object of this arrangement is to permit of the guns in both turrets being pointed dead ahead and astern. But if the Inflexible can do this, she cannot, it appears, cover more points of the compass altogether than her three lesser sisters."

As might be expected, intense and general sympathy is felt in England for k - the Queen over the death of Princess Alice. In the House o: Lords, Barlßeaconsfield, in moving an address of condolence, said the death of the Princess was wonderfully piteous. It had become her lot to break to her son the news of the death of his youngest sister. The boy was overcome with grief, and'the dying mother clasped him in ,hei" .Arms, giving him the kiss of deaths /