Matt's Model Boats

USRC Naugatuck , which was also known as USRC Stevens , was an ironclad that Edwin Augustus Stevens donated to the Treasury Department of the United States of America. Salmon Portland Chase, who had been Secretary of the Treasury at the time in which USRC Naugatuck  was delivered to the United States Revenue-cutter Service, re-named the gunboat in honour of the industrialist. It is possible, however, to mistake USRC Stevens  for the larger Stevens Battery  that was under construction at Hoboken.  USRC Naugatuck  had been built to provide the Treasury Department, which Chase had asked for half-a-million dollars, with a working model of the design principles which were embodied in the larger ironclad. Ballast tanks, protective iron plates, steam-engines, twin screws and a gun which could have the muzzle of its barrel depressed were among the features that were included in the revenue-cutter. Robert Livingstone Stevens, who was the older brother of E...

Mr. Telford's on the Intended Cumberland Canal; and Mr. Chapman's Further Observations Thereon  contains information about sailing flats as well as the ports which they visited. It is reported, on page 14, that sailing flats conveyed cargoes between Carlisle and Liverpool. Sailing flats, by crossing the Irish Sea, are claimed to have transported salt from the ports of the River Weaver to Dublin. An attempt is made, on page 21 of the third volume of Glossary of the Technical Terms Used in the Evidence Taken Before the Royal Commission of Labour , to draw a distinction between barges and lighters but it is concluded that the two types of vessel were indistinguishable from one another. Flats are described as lighters that were longer than canal boats and are reported, on page 22, to have been propelled by sails or by steam-engines. Sailing flats, on page 22, are claimed to have been designated as barges. It is reported, on page 24, that flats were boats that operated along the nav...

Pará -class monitos relied upon plates of wrought-iron and a backing of tropical hardwood, which covered the sides as well as the turrets of the river-craft, to resist the blows that they received from the batteries of the Paraguayan Army. Four and a half inches of wrought-iron plates, which were attached to fifteen-inches of solid timber, protected the sides of the fighting vessels. Six-inches of wrought-iron, which was backed by ten-inches of tropical hardwood, protected the turret from missiles. Humaitá, which was also known as Humayitá, prevented the Imperial Brazilian Navy from ascending the Paraguay River. A division of ironclads, which was stationed between Curupayty and Humaitá, awaited reinforcements from Brazil. Pará -class monitors, which arrived on the Paraguay River in the February of 1868, had been unable to participate in the earlier engagements that had occurred between the Allied armies and the forces of Francisco Solano López. A new division of ironclads, which includ...