CHIYODA
THE CHIYODA AT SEA WITH THE FLEET. 1903.
She was the first ship in any navy to be fitted with water-tube boilers, which were barely coming into existence in those days. Hers are of the Belleville type.
For protection she depends on a 4¼-in. chrome steel armour belt, 200 ft. long, amidships. Forward and aft of this is a protective deck 1½ ins. thick on the slopes. Throughout the entire water-line is a cellulose belt, and she is divided into 84 watertight compartments. The guns have no protection beyond the ordinary shields. They are, however, very well disposed.
In 1898 she was practically re-boilered, the old tubes being replaced by some specially large ones, in order to enable her to burn Japanese coal, which sooted the ordinary tubes.