If it should
not explode until it fell spent upon deck, besides doing the injury
of an ordinary ball, it would then burst, scattering smoke, fire, and
death, on every side. When this comes to pass, it would seem that
the naval profession would cease to be very desirable. Nevertheless,
experience has, in all ages, shown that, the more destructive are the
engines used in war, and the more it is improved and systematized, the
less is the loss of life. Salamis and Lepanto can either of them
alone count many times the added victims of the Nile, Trafalgar, and
Navarino.
One effect of the predicted change in naval war, it is said, will be
the substitution of small vessels for the larger ones now in use. The
three decker presents many times the surface of the schooner,
while her superior number of cannon does not confer a commensurate
advantage; for ten bombs, projected into the side of a ship, would be
almost as efficacious to her destruction as a hundred. As forming part
of a system of defence for our coast, the bomb-cannon, mounted on
steamers, which can take their position at will, would be terribly
formidable.
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