. Morton memorial; a history of the Stevens institute of technology, with biographies of the trustees, faculty, and alumni, and a record of the achievements of the Stevens family of engineers. timbers and filled withstone. The bow of the boat penetrated the dock for some 15 feet, shearing through thetimbers and displacing the stone, and the steamboat then backed out, entirely (Mr. Stevens argued), a lightly built river steamer, with wooden hull, could so cutinto and damage a solid crib dock, what would an equally rapid steamer with iron hull andprow made like the blade of an immen
. Morton memorial; a history of the Stevens institute of technology, with biographies of the trustees, faculty, and alumni, and a record of the achievements of the Stevens family of engineers. timbers and filled withstone. The bow of the boat penetrated the dock for some 15 feet, shearing through thetimbers and displacing the stone, and the steamboat then backed out, entirely (Mr. Stevens argued), a lightly built river steamer, with wooden hull, could so cutinto and damage a solid crib dock, what would an equally rapid steamer with iron hull andprow made like the blade of an immense axe, thoroughly backed up and supported by theentire structure behind it, accomplish, if hurled against the side of any ordinary woodenor iron vessel ? With this in view, the steamer, whose keel was laid in 1843, in consequence of acontract made by Robert L. Stevens with the Secretary of the Navy in April, 1842, was pro-vided with an immense axe-like solid iron prow, so braced and supported from the rest ofthe iron hull as to constitute an inseparable portion of the same. Again, to secure adequateprotection combined with a minimum weight, Mr. Stevens proposed to provide each of the. ii The Stevens Battery THE STEVENS BATTERY 127 large guns located above the armored deck or horizontal shield of the craft, with an indi-vidual housing or bomb-proof. These guns were mounted on revolving carriages, theirrecoil being taken up by rubber disk-springs in the manner since practised, and were to beloaded, directed, and fired from below the deck; the loading being accomplished by bringingtheir depressed muzzles opposite holes in the deck, provided for the purpose. This method of loading, directing, and firing was put into successful practice, in1863, in the Naugatuck, a small boat which Mr. E. A. Stevens fitted out himself with asingle gun of large calibre, and placed at the service of the United States government inthe time of anxiety immediately succeeding the combat of the Monitor an
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