ABSTRACT
Floating batteries, plated with iron, were employed in the Crimean War at the instigation of the French Emperor. About the same time the question of protecting ships of war by some kind of defensive armour was forced upon the attention of maritime powers, by the great strides with which the improvements in artillery were advancing; for the new guns could hurl projectiles capable of penetrating, with the greatest ease, any wooden ship afloat. The British navy contains two powerful turret-ships constructed on the same general plan as the Glatton, but larger, and capable of steaming at a greater speed, and of carrying coal for a long voyage. The Glatton is, nevertheless, one of the most powerful ships of war ever built, and may be considered as an impregnable floating fortress. Space is provided for a store of 1,800 tons of coal, of which the Glatton can carry only 500 tons.
