Thus the
steam-machinery of the Princeton fulfilled the most important
requisites for a war-steamer, combining lightness, compactness,
simplicity, and efficiency, and being placed wholly out of reach of the
enemy's fire.
The armament of the ship also exhibited many peculiarities. "By the
application of the various arts to the purposes of war on board of the
Princeton," says Captain Stockton, in his report to the Navy
Department, "it is believed that the art of gunnery for sea-service
has, for the first time, been reduced to something like mathematical
certainty. The distance to which the guns can throw their shot at every
necessary angle of elevation has been ascertained by a series of
careful experiments. The distance from the ship to any object is
readily ascertained with an instrument on board, contrived for that
purpose, by an observation which it requires but an instant to make,
and by inspection without calculation. By self-acting locks, the guns
can be fired accurately at the necessary elevation,--no matter what
the motion of the ship may be." The instruments here referred to,
namely, the Distance-Instrument and the Self-Acting Gun-Lock, and also
the wrought-iron gun-carriage, by means of which Captain Stockton's
enormous guns were readily handled and directed, all were the
productions of Ericsson's fertile mechanical genius.
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