Genre:

Announcement, Spoof

Subjects:

Military Technology, Steamships, Magnetism, Electricity, War

    Proposes to the Admiralty a 'new invention' consisting of 'an immense screw-steamer, considerably bigger than the SS Great Eastern' on which is placed a 'huge magnet' powered by a 'galvanic arrangement'. The magnet allows the vessel to attract smaller iron clad ships (including France's awesome La Gloire) and thus tow them into port and disarm them. Stresses that what the ship will cost in electromagnetism 'we should save in gunpowder'.