BRITISH NAVY.

FROM the most authentic information the state of the British navy on the 5th May, 1860, was as follows:

Three of the above are armed as follows:

The "Renown" is our best screw-steamer, and should be the model of these to be hereafter constructed. At present we have few like her.

( B.)

WAR NAVIES OF THE SEVERAL CONTINENTAL POWERS OF EUROPE, AND OF THE UNITED STATES.

THE number of French ships of the line and vessels of war, when the Commission of Inquiry (Enquête Parlementaire) commenced its labours, in 1850, was as in the following table:

The twenty-seven ships of the line afloat are as follow:

• Those marked with an asterisk were to be immediately converted into steam

ships.

The twenty ships said to be then on the stocks are as follow:

Eighteen of the above twenty were sailing ships, and these have since been converted into steamers. The twelve old sailing-ships, marked above with an asterisk, have since been lengthened and are to be converted into screw-steamers of 400 to 450 horse-power. All these will, when finished, make thirty-two line-of-battle steamers; but, since that time, twelve new steam-ships have been built, and one of these, the Bretagne,' was launched at Cherbourg, on the opening of that port in the present year: it carries 131 guns, and has engines of 1000 horse-power. The building of new ships in the ports of France continues, and there is no doubt that in 1861 the number will amount to fifty, as recommended by a member of the "Commission of Inquiry," in 1851. All the new ships of the line are built on the type of the 'Napoléon,' and are to have engines of nearly equal horse-power.

It may be interesting to know that, according to the evidence given at the Enquête Parlementaire in 1851, the total quantity of oak timber, for the purpose of ship-building, then in store at the five great ports of France-Cherbourg, Brest, L'Orient, Rochfort, and Toulon-amounted to 207,673 stère (7,334,387 cubic feet), and of fir 28,831 stère (1,018,224 cubic feet); also that the whole mean annual consumption of oak for this purpose, at the same ports, was 35,834 stère, or 1,265,549 cubic feet.