"Finally we took a plain sheet of iron the same measure, not corrugated, and it bent and fell from the blocks after ten slabs had been placed upon it. I believe that such results settle the question in regard to the local strength which corrugation imparts to iron and its adaptation in the construction of vessels.
[Illustration: TEST OF CORRUGATED IRON LAP MADE IN LIVERPOOL BY ADMIRAL BOUTAKOFF, R. I. N.]
On a call from the Russian Government, the inventor submitted photographs and drawings of the steamers constructed by the Liverpool Company, addressed, according to instructions, to the Grand Duke Constantine.
After some little necessary correspondence, shorn of all diplomatic red tape, a contract was entered into between the Imperial Government and Mr. Francis, for the construction of a fleet of light-draft steamers, to be pushed to completion rapidly as possible. The result was that, ere the year 1862 had passed, steamers, fully engined, and ready for service, were erected at the Liverpool factory, and taken apart again for shipment. These vessels were 150 to 200 feet in length, built on similar lines to vessels already constructed by the Company. When the steamers had been put together, tested and again set up at the factory, they were boxed for shipment, in sections, both hulls, floating dock and machinery, when they were ready for
THE STRANGEST ROUTE EVER TRAVERSED BY SHIP.
From Liverpool they went first to St. Petersburgh--thence to Moscow--on to Nijni Novgorod--across the Volga--over the Ural Mountains--to the Aral Sea, in Asia--where they were at length unboxed, the sections once again put together and, lo, a
upreared as if by magic hands. This was the initiative in Russia's grandest Dream of Empire. These vessels had crossed the Aral barrier, and swooped down like things of life on the insulated sea, the inhabitants of whose shores fondly dreamed they dwelt secure in Nature's fastness. Impossible would it have been to transport vessels in their entirety over the rugged heights, and deadly impracticable would it have been to attempt their construction on the Aral seaboard, in full view of an alert and suspicious people.
Here it may be well to introduce three letters, the originals of which are in possession of the writer, and which are fully corroborative of the preceding statements.