Mr. E. J. Reed, in a third letter to the
Times, published on Monday last, makes us more anxious than ever as to the scien- tific education of the men who at present have the real control of our Navy. He shows that a former Admiral-Superintendent of the Dockyards, Admiral Sir King Hall, is quite unaware of the mistake made in arranging the ventilating-holes in the bulkheads which divided the cellular compartments of the Vanguard 'from each other. Admiral Sir King Hall had argued in extenuation that the holes were but six inches in diameter, that they were high up in the bulkheads, and that they were fitted with the means of dosing them ; the fact being that though they were high up in the bulkheads, they were in a part which soon became immersed as the ship took in water, and that the apparatus for closing them could not be used when it was wanted, since the hole-covers were not worked from the deck above. Sir King Hall's is indeed just the sort of extenuation which shows how very dangerous it is, to put Admirals with a seaman's education over scientific men who need so firm a grasp of the principles and details of our refined machinery, as the naval constructors of our great ships have, and must have. The true mischief is that we have a profes- sion trained in navigation, and who know little of machinery, lording it over a profession of whose craft they can understand very little, hardly even enough to know the immense consequence of their own blunders.
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