Ships the British navy might have had! Freaks of marine architecture that have not been officially adopted.

We illustrate here some curious designs for war-ships by various inventors.

No. 1 is McDougal's Armoured Whale-back, with conning-towers, a design of 1892 for converting whalebacks into war-vessels.

No. 2 is an American design of 1892, Commodore Folger's Dynamite Ram, cigar-shaped, with two guns throwing masses of dynamite or aerial torpedoes.

No. 3 is a design by the Earl of Mayo in 1894 and called "Aries the Ram," built round an immense beam of steel terminating in a sharp point,

No. 4 is Gathmann's boat for a heavy gun forward, designed in 1900. She was to be of great speed, and the forward gun was to throw 600 lb. of gun-cotton at the rate of 2000 feet per second. A formidable Armada this, had it been practicable.