The particular one of these three especially intended for this peculiar
emergency was a ship of entirely novel design, made by the celebrated
inventor John Ericsson, a Swede by birth, but American by adoption--a
man who combined great original genius with long scientific study and
experience. His invention may be most quickly described as having a
small, very low hull, covered by a much longer and wider flat deck only
a foot or two above the water-line, upon which was placed a revolving
iron turret twenty feet in diameter, nine feet high, and eight inches
thick, on the inside of which were two eleven-inch guns trained side by
side and revolving with the turret. This unique naval structure was
promptly nicknamed "a cheese-box on a raft," and the designation was not
at all inapt. Naval experts at once recognized that her sea-going
qualities were bad; but compensation was thought to exist in the belief
that her iron turret would resist shot and shell, and that the thin edge
of her flat deck would offer only a minimum mark to an enemy's guns: in
other words, that she was no cruiser, but would prove a formidable
floating battery; and this belief she abundantly justified.
The test of her fighting qualities was attended by what almost suggested
a miraculous coincidence.
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