Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/338



a previous chapter reference has been made to the tendency of navies to evolve themselves in cycles. A similar tendency is to be found in warships besides their eternal tendency to increase in dimensions. It is the cycle tendency which retards that increase in dimensions which would otherwise probably be swifter than it is.

Old-time navies are not of much interest in this connection: the principle involved is also better to be seen in the warships of the last forty years or so.

The first warship that belonged distinctly to the present era was the American Monitor. She embodied an absolutely new principle: the employment of a few of the heaviest possible guns against a larger number of lesser pieces. She also embodied an attempt at invulnerability as opposed to partial armour protection. Another integral idea may be said to have been the employment of all the guns on either side instead of having only half the guns available for use against any one target at any given moment.