of the battered sides, and 30 feet from the hulk, and sunk to a distance of 20 feet below the water line, which would bring it about opposite the bend of the bilge.  By 3 p.m. everything was ready for the explosion of the charge—­everybody had cleared out of the ship while the surrounding small craft drew off to a distance of 300 feet.  The charge was electrically fired from a pinnace.  The burst was terrific and the reverberation was heard and the shock distinctly felt in the dockyard.  But the remarkable thing was that the hulk did not appear to jump in the least, though there was not more than six feet of water under her keel.  That she would not be seriously crippled by the discharge seems to have been accepted as a foregone conclusion by Captain Long and the other torpedoists, as the day for the third experiment had been fixed in advance; but that the steel booms with their double flange running ways, stays, travelers, and hinges should have resisted the tremendous jar and upheaval was a genuine surprise for all concerned, and goes far to prove that except a vessel be taken unawares, it will be impossible for a torpedo to come into actual contact with it.  At the experiments last year the wooden booms were unhinged and splintered under a much less violent shock.  But the steel booms employed, though somewhat bent, remained unbroken and in position, and the joints were quite uninjured.  All that is necessary for perfect defense is that the booms should be made a little heavier.

The torpedo experiments against the Resistance were resumed on June 13, when the old ironclad suffered some rough treatment.  As the experiment was understood to be the last of the second series, and was fully expected to have a sensational termination, a considerable number of interested spectators were attracted to the scene in Fareham Creek.  The torpedoists resorted to severe measures, but with a distinctly useful purpose in view, having bound the ship hand and foot, so to speak, in such a way that her name became a solecism.  They exploded 95 lb. of gun cotton 20 ft. below the water, and in contact with her double bottom.  This amount of explosive represents the full charge of the old pattern 16 in.  Whiteheads; but as the hulk was, for prudential reasons, moored close to a mud bank, and as the water was consequently much too shallow to allow of a locomotive torpedo being set to run at the required depth, a fixed charge was lashed fore and aft against the bottom plating of the ship and electrically exploded from No. 95 torpedo boat.

In previous experiments this year the ironclad was attacked on the port side, which had been specially strengthened for the occasion, and the result was a victory for the defense.  On June 13 the starboard side was selected for attack, in order that a comparison might be instituted with the effects produced under different conditions by a similar experiment.