One of the most remarkable and interesting mechanical arrangements at the Imperial Navy Yard at Kiel, Germany, is the iron clad plate bending machine, by means of which the heavy iron clad plates are bent for the use of arming iron clad vessels.
Through the mechanism of this remarkable machine it is possible to bend the strongest and heaviest iron clad plates--in cold condition--so that they can be fitted close on to the ship's hull, as it was done with the man-of-war ships Saxonia, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden, each of which having an iron strength of about 250 meters.
One may make himself a proximate idea of the enormous power of pressure of such a machine, if he can imagine what a strength is needed to bend an iron plate of 250 meters thickness, in cold condition; being also 1.5 meters in width, and 5.00 meters in length, and weighing about 14,555 kilogrammes, or 14,555 tons.

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