Ships of steel

Excavation 364
Today we found an oddity at the work site. Apparently in the past someone thought to build a ship using steel. The ribs, keel and gunwales were thick heavy steel, then beams and joists smaller and used for interior divisions. There were great metal doors with wheel like locking mechanisms. There appeared to have been wooden finishes and fittings but those had long rotted away. The hull seems to be doubled with great plates both welded and riveted in place. 
There were no apparent oar ports or masts to move the ship across the water. Some sort of strange device towards the stern appears to have driven a shaft that looks something like an egg beater. All in all this must be some vile work of the dwarves. Foul little creatures. This is definitely not an elegant ship of the elves or a brutal one of the trolls. All in all a great waste of good steel.
There seems to be a sort of cannon. Likely mounted on the fore deck. Strangely it has an opening where the touch hole or flintlock would have been. Several odd metallic cylinders were also found that are quite dangerous as one exploded when it was haphazardly tossed aside.  Perhaps these cylinders are meant to be placed in the opening. Debatable if we will be given resources to investigate this. 
Also found inside what would have been the hold of the ship was a large supply of coal that had been mined and undergone some unknown refinement. We speculate that this refinement was something that perhaps makes it burn hotter and more efficiently. 
We intend to apply alchemical processes to the steel to possibly determine where it was mined and smelted. A query has been sent to our smiths asking them to examine to steel to determine who and which group from within forged the metal. 
This is all that the Imperial Engineers have been able to ascertain at this time.