The gunnery experiments on the Belleisle ' took place last
Saturday. The very first shell from one of the Majestic's' 12 in. guns entered the stern, traversed the ship, and emerged at the bows. In three minutes, superstructure, forecastle, and funnel had gone; in another minute the Belleisle' had settled down on the bank ; and when the firing, which lasted nine minutes, had ceased she was so absolutely wrecked and destroyed that it was im- possible to distinguish by shape which was her stem and which the stern. The experiment will be the subject of pro- longed investigation, but this much is clear from the state- ment made by Mr. Goschen in the House. The decks and woodwork, which had been flooded beforehand, did not take fire, possibly, as a writer in the Times conjectures, because the gaseous products of modern explosives are themselves adverse to the spread of fire, and act automatically as extinguishers. Somewhat similarly it is now held that the rapid healing of gunshot flesh wounds is due to the auto- matic cauterising of the wounds by the heat generated by the high velocity of modern rifle-bullets. Thus, by a curious paradox, modern destructive inventions carry with them their own remedies.
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