The USS Cumberland, later sunk by the CSS Virginia

This is said to be a photograph of the USS Cumberland, a sailing corvette, that was sunk by ramming by the CSS Virginia in Hampton Roads in 1862.

The cruiser Shah

The most notable event in the career of the British unarmoured cruiser Shah was in 1877, when the Shah and the Amethyst fought an action against the Peruvian ironclad Huascar. The main lesson from the battle was that large cruisers needed some protection in the form of armour. The Shah and Amethyst were unable to damage the Huascar. Had the Peruvians been able to fire accurately, William Hovgaard thought that the Huascar might have defeated the two unarmoured cruisers. The Shah was nominally 6,250 tons and carried 2-9in MLR, 16-7in MLR, and 8-64pdr MLR. The Shah had a maximum speed of 16.2 knots.

The small wooden cruiser USS Hartford

The USS Hartford was about a 2550 ton wooden cruiser. SHe had a single screw which could propel the Hartford at up to 9-1/2 knots. She was originally armed with 20-9in MLSB guns, augmented by 2-20pdr Parrott guns and 2-12pdr guns. She served as David Farragut's flagship from January 1862. Her most notable actions were the Battle of New Orleans and the Battle of Mobile Bay.

A really great picture of HMS Viper at speed

This is a picture that is derived from that on Wikipedia, but is cleaned up considerably. The picture is so useful, because you could make an accurate outboard profile drawing use it.

A spycam view of the Italian cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi

This is sort of a spycam view of the Italian armoured cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi, which was well-regarded in its time. A large number of foreign sales were made of ships of this design. Two of the last were the Japanese cruisers Nisshin and Kasuga.

Look in Google Book Search for Brassey's The Naval Annual

At least the 1888 Brassey's Naval Annual can be downloaded from Google Book Search. If you are interested in the old ships from 1660 to 1905, this is a good book. As usual, the book is too hard to find. Google seems to delight in hiding full view books. I had to go deep into the search results to find this volume.

Chinese coast defense ship Ping-Yuen

The 1894 Naval Annual classes the Chinese ship Ping-Yuen as a coast defense ship. The Ping-Yuen was only 2,850 tons (a nominal figure). The ship was 200ft x 40ft x 16ft in size and had two screws. The maximum speed was only 10.5 knots. The Ping-Yuen did have an 8in belt and 1-10.2in BLR, 2-6in BLR, and 8-QF guns. The Ping-Yuen was built in 1890. This picture shows the ship in Japanese service, after being taken in the Sino-Japanese War.