Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/109

 NAVY.

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rounds in place of 110, the number allotted to the old vessels. Her rig, with the sails and masts, is rather heavier than that of the Normandie.

The Taureau, launched at Toulon on the 10th of June, 18G5, is one of the most remarkable among the French iron-clads. The Taureau is a steam-ram, of peculiar construction, drawing but little water, and rising but a few feet above the waves. Her prow terminates in a point, and this point is armed with a kind of massive bronze cone which serves as her spur. It is with this spur that the Taureau, driven at a speed of 12 to 14 knots an hour by machinery of 500- horse power, can strike and split a ship. The Taureau is, moreover, supplied with two screws, which enable her to turn in a very small space and with the greatest facility. She carries but a single gun, which weighs twenty tons, and has but one deck, which is plated with iron from one end to the other. The sides of the hull are like- wise plated with iron the full length, from 3 feet under the water- line to the deck. The deck and the sides form, as it were, an iron box, safe from any shot that may be fired at it. It is in this iron box that the machinery is placed, and the entire crew during an action, except those in the tower. The deck of the Taureau is covered over its entire length with a cylindrical ball-proof dome. The surface of the dome is so inclined that it is not practicable to walk on it, and it is held to be impossible to capture the vessel by boarding.

The largest iron-clad in the navy of France is the Rochambeau, formerly called ' Dunderberg,' a ram built for the United States, in 1865, and purchased by the French government in the summer of 1867, for the sum of 400,000?. The ram of the Rochambeau is part of the ship, and is not bolted or fastened on as is usually the case, but is an extension of the bow, which for 50ft. is a firm and solid mass of timber. This is covered over with heavy wrought- iron armour, and forms a beak, which, driven at a high rate of speed, it is said will pierce through the strongest ships. On the side of the vessel below the casemate the armour is 3^ inches thick, and placed on vertically in screw bolted slabs, from 12 feet to 15 feet long and 3 feet wide. The propeller and two rudders are protected by a shelf, which runs out aft and is braced to the stern and sides. Of the two rudders, the first is the one common to all ships, the other is placed above and forward of the propeller. The Rochambeau carries 14 guns, and has a total burthen of 5,090 tons.

The smaller of the French iron-clads are mainly destined for the attack and defence of coasts, roadsteads, or harbours. They com- prise, besides the ordinary floating batteries built chiefly for the Russian and Italian wars, vessels, eleven in number, called ' Batteries flottantes demontables,' all of which can be taken to pieces, and carried any distance over land. At the end of 1869, these iron-