I do not believe it is possible to fully appreciate Jules Verne’s prophetic masterpiece without having some understanding of where things stood with warship design during the period Verne set his story. It’s against that backdrop that the Nautilus really shines. Which is not to say that the reality wasn’t pretty damn amazing.
In Part One of this blog we engaged in a cursory examination of the naval armaments of Verne’s day. So let us now examine the naval technology of the day—and we’ll begin with the sister ship (and by far the more famous of the two) of the HMS Black Prince. A word of caution first: This is by no means intended to be an exhaustive study of mid 19th century warship development.