Novel Gunboat and Global Telegraph Plans
THe great Iron Company of Marseilles have just completed, at their dock-yard at LaSeyne, near Toulon, an Iron-plated steam gunboat, on a new model. It has already been tried, and the result has been most satisfactory. It may be easily separated into 18 pieces, and each of these forms a small boat, which may travel over land or navigate the sea with equal facility. The gunboat, when entire, accomplishes eight and a half knots an hour. When taken to pieces a whole fleet of gunboats may be moved from one place to another by railway at the rate of 35 miles an hour. THE GLOBE TO BE GIRDLED.—Russia having given permission to Mr. Collins, an American citizen, to construct an electric telegraph line from Russia across Behring Straits, and the British government having granted the right of way through British Columbia to connect this line with existing United States lines, the two continents are erelong to be connected by telegraphic communication, without encountering the risks of a submarine cable across the Atlantic.