Frigates 1 50 3,684
Steam sloops 7 68 9,669
Steam gunboats 28 184 35,160
Iron-clad ocean gunboats 22 58 26,955
Iron-clad river gunboats 12 33 8,682
The total number of vessels of all classes in the navy, is 376, having a
tonnage of 307,234 tons, and carrying 3,038 guns of heavy calibre.
With these statistics, compiled from 'official' sources, we conclude
this article, and in our next shall take up the subject of naval gunnery
in the United States.
THREE MODERN ROMANCES.
'GUY LIVINGSTONE,' 'SWORD AND GOWN,' AND 'BARREN HONOR.'
This terrible power of fictitious invention, wherewith God has endowed
man, and which now-a-days we take readily enough, without comment, is
yet the growth of comparatively modern times, the development within a
few centuries of a new faculty. The Greek never solaced his leisure with
the latest tale of a gifted Charicles or Aristarchus, and the grave
Roman would have been as much startled by a 'new novel' as by the
apparition of a steam engine. The famous Minerva press was the first
mighty wellspring whence gushed the broad and rapid torrent of cheap
fiction. This perennial fountain has long ceased to flow, yet has its
disappearance left no unsatisfied void. The procreation of human kind
has failed to support the elaborate theory of Malthus, but had the sage
philosopher transferred his calculations from the sons of men to works
of fiction, then indeed he might stand forth the prophet of a striking
truth.
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