AN IRON ISLAND.

Dunstan Times, Issue 566, 21 February 1873, Page 3

AN IRON ISLAND.

That the Devastation is a success, so far as she has boon tried, is now admitted. The ponderous monster, which squats upon the astonished waters with a dead weight of ten thousand tons, takes any ordinary waves with sold indifference, whether the receives them end on, or upon bow, beam or quarter. Tbo pridigious hill of foam which her stem piles up when under weigh washes as was expected clean over her forward deck and she is often submerged aft, but her massive mid-section rides quietly enough and those on hoard her when anchored in the rolling tideway at Spithead, say that she was “steadier than the houses ashore. - ’ She turns with great readiness and in a small circle, and her speed as proved in six trials along the measured mile, is not only equal to the promise of her designers but it exceeds expectation. The mighty engines driving this island of iron with an indicated power of 6,600 horses with seventyseven resolutions to the minute, got fifteen knots and a half out of the ship, and her mean rate at full steam is thirteen knots and three-quarters. Here, therefore, is a craft which is vulnerable only to a very few guns, has the swiftness of a mailpacket, and the handiness—thanks to her twin-screws of a tug, "while she could utilize thesequal■ities to hurl upon the sides of an opponent the awful force of all her 10,000 tons movin with the velocity of a spear. On board this remarkable man of war there are no less than thirty-four distinct and separate engines, and indeed the value which she icpresents is as serious as her fighting capacity. What remains to be learned is the behaviour of the ugly giant in a real Biscay pale; and whether or no tho ctd-desac which she carries aft will prove a mistake in a heavy following sea. With stability assured to oGdeg, with no top gear to set her over, and wit hdecks which can be her metically scaled, she would be safe enough; but when evevshe docs roll, or pitch, or scud, the rivets and fittings in herhngo body will be shrewd, ly tried. Except tho Russian monitor Peter the Great nothing floating could resist or even challenge such a vessel at onoo so strong and swift. The torpedo no doubt may yet he so developed as to make the Devastation and all her terrible sisters impotent against a defended coast. On the high seas, at present she has no superior, though wo suppose the clay will come when even this amazing construction will be as obsolete as the three-deckers of Nelson.—London Daily Tdejorph.