A big ship going at top speed burns about 1,000 tons a day at 50
francs a ton (if not more), making 50,000 francs a day. Admitting the
total of the operations at top speed and under full steam to have
lasted at least one day, put down two and a half million for the
big ships alone. Adding the coal for the smaller boats will bring
it up to three million. The wear and tear of boilers, dynamos, and
machinery, other than the damage due to the actual fighting, would
make this amount up to 20 million, which, added to the preceding 950
and rounding it out with things we may not have accounted for, would
constitute a total of about forty million pounds sterling for the
material alone.