THE FRENCH ARMORED TURRET SHIP MARCEAU

The Marceau, the last ironclad completed and added to the French navy, was put in commission at Toulon in April last, and has lately left that town to join the French squadron of the north at Brest. The original designs of this ship were prepared by M. Huin, of the French Department of Naval Construction, but since the laying down of the keel in the year 1882 they have been very considerably modified, and many improvements have been introduced.

Both ship and engines were constructed by the celebrated French firm, the Société des Forges et Chantiers de la Mediterranée, the former at their shipyard in La Seyne and the latter at their engine works in Marseilles. The ship was five years in construction on the stocks, was launched in May, 1887, and not having been put in commission until the present year, was thus nearly nine years in construction. She is a barbette belted ship of somewhat similar design to the French ironclads Magenta, now being completed at the Toulon arsenal, and the Neptune, in construction at Brest.

The hull is constructed partly of steel and partly of iron, and has the principal dimensions as follows. Length, 330 ft. at the water line; beam, 66 ft. outside the armor; draught, 27 ft. 6 in. aft.; displacement, 10,430 English or 10,600 French tons. The engines are two in number, one driving each propeller; they are of the vertical compound type, and on the speed trials developed 11,300 indicated horse power under forced and 5,500 indicated horse power under natural draught, the former giving a speed of 16.2 knots per hour with 90 revolutions per minute. The boilers are eight in number, of the cylindrical marine type, and work at a pressure of 85.3 lb. per square inch. During the trials the steering powers of the ship were found to be excellent, but the bow wave is said, by one critic, to have been very great.

The ship is completely belted with Creusot steel armor, which varies in thickness from 9 in. forward to 17¾ in. midships. In addition to this belt the ship is protected by an armored deck of 3½ in., while the barbette gun towers are protected with 15¾ in. steel armor with a hood of 2½ in. to protect the men against machine gun fire. As a further means of insuring the life of the ship in combat and also against accidents at sea, the Marceau is divided into 102 water-tight compartments and is fitted with torpedo defense netting. There are two masts, each carrying double military tops; and a conning tower is mounted on each mast, from either of which the ship may be worked in time of action, and both of which are in telegraphic communication with the engine rooms and magazines. Provision is made for carrying 600 tons of coal, which, at a speed of 10 knots, should be sufficient to supply the boilers for a voyage of 4,000 miles.

The armament of the Marceau is good for the tonnage of the ship and consists principally of four guns of 34 centimeters (13.39 in.) of the French 1884 model, having a weight of 52 tons, a length of 28½ calibers, and being able to pierce 30 in. of iron armor at the muzzle. The projectiles weigh 924 lb., and are fired with a charge of 387 lb. of powder. The muzzle velocity has been calculated to be 1,968 ft. per second. The guns are entirely of steel and are mounted on Canet carriages in four barbette towers, one forward, one aft, and one on each side amidships. On the firing trials both the guns and all the Canet machinery, for working the guns and hoisting the ammunition, gave very great satisfaction to all present at the time. In addition to the above four heavy guns there are, in the broadside battery, sixteen guns of 14 centimeters (5.51 in.), eight on each side, and a gun of equal caliber is mounted right forward on the same deck. The armament is completed by a large number of Hotchkiss quick-firing and revolver guns and four torpedo tubes, one forward, one aft, and one on each side.

The crew of the Marceau has been fixed at 600 men, and the cost is stated to have been about $3,750,000.--Engineering.