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and ingenuity are frequently required to keep a ship afloat, owingto her general great leakage ; and many vessels so shattered, thoughimmediate danger may be averted, have to be sent home for repairs.

Teak, which is the strongest and most durable timber for ships-of-war, is the most liable to splinter, and is on this account muchdreaded by seamen. One shot and the splinters occasioned by ithave been known to kill and wound no fewer than nineteen men.

The action on a vessel, arising from the recoil of her guns, ismuch in favour of iron, if we may judge from the effect produced onthe “ Nemesis” and the “ Phlegethon,” each carrying two thirty-two pound pivot guns, and also fitted with twenty-four pounders.They have sustained no injury from the recoil of these heavy piecesof artillery, while it is said that the timber-built steamers employedin the same service were shaken, and became leaky.

OUR STEAM NAVY.

The steam department of our navy now requires notice, and Ido not shrink from advancing some observations upon it, althoughI may thereby expose myself to the charge of being somewhat pre-sumptuous. It is well known that, in this department, the operationsof the government for several years lagged far behind those that have re-sultedfromprivateenterprise. Until withinarecentperiod, they seemedto have viewed steam as an innovation of questionable utility upon old-established practice and national feeling, as many yet regard the intro-duction of iron in ship-building ; and they appeared to pause, with analmost unaccountable apathy, till the great national experimenthad been tried at the cost of individuals. I need not ask whethersuch a course was to have been expected from the government of acountry where all is dependent on her ships. They would surelyhave done well, had they called together all the united talent of thenation, and stimulated the energies of her engineers. To the wantof such steps may, in a great measure, be attributed the circumstancethat steam property has been the ruin of thousands. Owners ofsteam vessels, narrowed in their resources, were obliged to trust forimprovements to the random experiments of unscientific men, whohave had no standard to guide them ; and the burden, which wouldscarcely have been felt, had the well-combined exertions of a govern-