$46 per inhabitant. Savings banks are not much in use, the total deposits of the 12 States being only 101 million dollars, or $4 per inhabitant, against $151 per head in New England. Wealth. The components of wealth in 1890 were as follows: Million dollars. Dollars per Farms. Houses. Railways. Sundries. Total. inhabitant. The creation of wealth in these States has been exceedingly rapid, the accumulation per inhabitant being 2 times as much as in Great Britain. If we take the interval from 1860 to 1890, we find that the mean population of these States was 15,400,000, that of the United Kingdom 33,400,000, and the statement of wealth was as follows: In these States wealth has multiplied sixfold in 30 years, whereas in the United Kingdom it only doubles in 50 years. It may here be observed that the lowest average of wealth per head is in Missouri, which is, moreover, the only State having a large colored population; the ratio of the latter is 6 per cent. in Missouri, and only 2 per cent. in the Prairie States generally. Mortgages are relatively less than in the Eastern States, amounting to one-seventh of the value of real estate; farms are more heavily mortgaged than house property, viz.: The only State heavily mortgaged is Kansas, where the ratio is 26 per cent. of the value of real estate; the lightest is Ohio, only 10 per cent. The rate of interest ranges from 64 in Ohio and Illinois to 9 per cent. in Dakota. The sum paid yearly for interest on mortgage in the 12 States is equal to $7 per inhabitant, against $6 for the whole Union. Property covered by insurance amounts to 2,145 million dollars, or only $96 to each inhabitant, the average for the Union being $300. Wisconsin shows the highest insurance ratio among these States, namely, $200 per head. Finances.-The sum of local and State taxation in 1890 was 182 million dollars, or $8 per inhabitant, of which one-third was for maintenance of public schools, the rate over the whole Union in 1890 being $9.10 per inhabitant. Education. The ratio of instruction for the whole population is higher than in any other part of the Union, viz.: The foreign settlers in the Prairie States are of a superior class to those in the Eastern, the former being mostly farmers from Northern Europe, while the bulk of the latter consists of factory hands and unskilled laborers. The educational statistics in 1890 were as follows: Population over 3,909,000 16,910,000 The schools of these States are not only efficient, but also conducted with economy, each scholar costing only $11 yearly, against $15 in the Middle States and $17 in New England. Compared with the Union at large, the Prairie States stand for 36 per cent. of population, 47 per cent. of agriculture, 34 per cent. of manufactures, 31 per cent. of mining, and 39 per cent. of wealth; so that they may be said to constitute all round 35 per cent. of the Great Republic. In many respects they surpass in importance five or six European empires and kingdoms rolled into one; and yet men still living can remember when their population did not exceed that of the island of Sardinia. MICHAEL G. MULHALL, F. S. S. THE PROGRESS OF BRITISH WARSHIPS' DESIGN. BY ADMIRAL P. H. COLOMB, R. N. And yet I What they THE advice to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest is not commonly tendered to those authorities who have ultimately to determine the type of the warships. am not clear that it is bad advice even to them. have to buy is naval force, and what they have to sell is the result of force should war send them to market. All the adverse criticisms that can possibly be offered on the type, armament, speed, and endurance of any warship only result in asserting that more force for sale could be bought with the money. No doubt the fact is little present to the minds of such hostile critics as are in the habit of straining at naval gnats and swallowing naval camels; but if it were present in a greater degree the criticisms pronounced would generally be sounder. But as we stand, in the middle of all the controversies as to whether the ships are too large or too small, whether the battleships and cruisers are properly proportioned in number, whether there is a sufficiency of end-on fire, or whether any ship is fast enough, it requires a distinct intellectual effort to realize that we are discussing economy measured in money. The British purse is so long, and when our people are hot on any subject so easy to get at, that we are sometimes disinclined to look at alternative articles in the buying market. The sweep of invention in the matter of warship design is then in a measure turned in on itself, and can only modify the models it finds already adopted The alternative thesis in design is a necessity in the question of cost.. If so many ships of such a design represent so much force and cost so much money, will so many other ships of such another design represent the same force for less money? That is the real question always before the naval architect, but it is much less pressing on him in times of naval boom than when the Chancellor of the Exchequer keeps his pockets buttoned. In times of boom the cry is for a full supply of existing designs; it is when the cold fit is on that alternatives receive attention. But alternatives are constantly offered to the naval architect which do not admit of choice. There are inventions to improve the power of the gun, and the armor for resisting its projectiles; increases in the range, accuracy, and charge of the torpedo, and means for reducing the waste in burning the pound of coal so as to get more propulsive power out of it. To be improvements these inventions must yield an increase in result without a proportionate increase in the weight, or perhaps the space, that they claim in any design. Once this is proved by experiment the designer has no choice; he must adopt the new inventions or be left behind in the race. The alternatives only offer a choice when it is considered how the economies offered by invention shall be applied. Shall all design remain as it is, and shall we increase the gun-power, armor resistance, torpedo power, speed, and coal endurance in the proportions allowed by invention? Or shall gun-power be varied, increasing numbers and decreasing individual power? Or will it be desirable to reconsider the gun's position in ships as a tactical question? Or shall the gun remain in power and place as it was, in order to add to some other element? Shall armor cover greater areas of side with the old resistance? Or shall the old areas and resistance be maintained in order to put the weight saved into speed, or coal endurance, or gun-power? Shall coal endurance yield to speed, or speed to coal endurance? Or shall both remain so that armor resistance and gun-power may be increased? This great list of alternatives comes before the naval architect as soon as it is decided to adopt any of the improvements described, and the real interest in the problem is the economy of the choice. But the designer's difficulty lies in the fact that, as far as the adoption of any such improvement goes, he can fully verify his position by experiment in peace time; while until the experiment of war overtakes him he can seldom verify the wisdom of his alternative choices. But it is even worse than that, for he must build and equip by the light of an opinion which is continually changing, which will lead him on in certain directions, and then turn around on him and denounce him. It must be so in the absence of war experiment, but even this will not act with much suddenness. All warships' design rests on some tactical ideas which are now more or less incompletely thought out, and there is continual action and reaction going on between the tactical idea as creating the concrete design and the concrete design as modifying the tactical idea. This interaction may go on till the experiment of war settles it, perhaps in a way that shows the whole thing to have been a fallacy. It is scarcely a paradox to say that the French Admiral BouetWillaumez, writing in 1855, influenced the defeat of the Chinese in 1894, tactical idea acting on design, and design forcing the hand of tactics. The simple story is on this wise. BouetWillaumez, in 1855, conceived that steam had broken with the old line of battle-a fighting formation in Indian file; and he declared that the line abreast-ships ranged beside one another like a line of soldiers-was the true fighting formation for steam fleets. In the old line of battle, the side of the ship was presented to the enemy, and warships prepared to fight in it were denuded of guns at bow and stern so that the whole strength of their fire was delivered at right angles to the line of keel. If steam fleets were henceforth to fight in line abreast, it followed that they might be denuded of fire at right angles to the line of keel, or at least weakened in that direction, provided their greatest strength was given to fire in the line of keel. Bouet-Willaumez reaffirmed his opinion in 1865, and the idea coinciding with that of fighting with the ram rather than with the gun, was much followed up in England. It soon began to affect design, so that a sort of craving for heavy bow fire grew up and increased the more it was yielded to. At length came the "Inflexible," where the power of broadside fire was distinctly sacrificed in order to fully develop fire in the line of keel. Other ships of the same type followed, and any Admiral commanding a group of them must have recognized that their force would be best employed in the line abreast. The most powerful of the Chinese ships, the Ting-Yuen and the "Chen-Yuen," followed in an even more pronounced |