"An idea of what our fleet was like may be gathered from the dreadful condition of the Orel, which was nally captured by the Japanese. But the Orel was the last of its column, and thus suffered litle in comparison with the others. The Japanese vie-tory was entirely won by their guns and the effects of the firing were entirely different from what had been expected. None of our ironclads were pierced by, shells, but the repeated shock of the projectiles bursting against them disjointed their steel plates. The rivets sprung and the water, rushing in by the holes thus opened, shifted the centre of gravity of the vessels, causing them to upset fand sink. One of the greatest daners to battleships was shown to be the sheet of fire in which they are enveloped in consequence of the explosion of shells, the paint with which everything is covered becoming then extremely dangerous. Neither did our torpedo boats nor the torpedo boats of the Japanese play a primary part in the battle. But besides os-ing the ald of these, our small guns of thirty-seven to fifty millimeters were completely useless. Tt was with the powerful guns of our batteries that we inflicted their casualties upon the Japanese, and it was with their large calibre' guns that they destreyed our fleet.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.