06Jul1866, On Board the Victory

H.M.S. VICTORY,[FN: Where she was the guest of her sister-in-law Lady Louisa Egerton, wife of Captain Egerton.] July 6th, 1866.
—The 4 a.m. gun is a startling event, and made me jump. We went with Frank early to see the Block machinery, which delighted me ; also on board a hideous splay-shaped monster called the Royal Sovereign, one of the turret ships. Her luckless turret has been a good deal smashed by experiments with a 12-ton gun. But the Captain (Herbert) showed off the wounds with more pride than grief, being over the moon at the steel plates having been only smashed, not cracked. Afterwards we went (all of us) by train to Southampton, and were a good deal impressed and bewildered by information about Ordnance Survey maps ; and were shown a mysterious process, half-photography, half-engraving, called zincography, lately invented.