armor plating, no longer in its exaggeration of thickness, but in the
intrinsic quality of the metal of which it is composed. Metallurgists
have applied themselves to the work and have thus brought out various
products, among which the plates called "compound," of Messrs. Cammell
& Co., have obtained a great notoriety. These plates, formed of a true
plating of steel upon a bed of soft iron, have been much in vogue in
the English navy, and seemed as if they were to be adopted about
everywhere.

The Creusot works alone, of all competitors, were able to fight
against the general infatuation. Many comparative experiments had
already demonstrated the superiority of the Creusot "all steel" plates
over the Cammell plates, but Messrs. Schneider & Go. were not willing
to stop here, and finally produced the new nickel steel plate, which
is by far superior to their steel plates.

Some comparative trials of these various armor plates have recently
been made by a military commission of the United States at the
Annapolis proving grounds. Three plates, one a Cammell, the second a
steel, and the third a nickel steel (the two last from Creusot), were
here submitted to firing, under absolutely identical conditions.

Our engravings show the proving grounds and the details of the
arrangements adopted for backing the plates.

Of the three plates, the Cammell was the thickest (11 in.) The steel
one was 103/4 in. in thickness, and the nickel steel 101/2 in. The last,
therefore, was at a disadvantage with respect to the two others.

The plates were arranged tangentially to an arc of a circle whose