Page:The Development of Navies During the Last Half-Century.djvu/161

capable of mathematical demonstration, that with two ships well handled and free from injury it is only a slight difference of time and movement whether one rams the other or herself sustains the shock; that to bring the stem advantageously in contact with another vessel requires, under any circumstances, considerable skill, but that opportunities may occur in a general action which should be promptly seized. Experience, however, is far from showing that entire reliance should be placed on the ram, to the exclusion of weapons well tried in the past, and which have a much greater radius of action.