CHAPTER IV
THE INAUGURATION OF THE LINER
It was not to be thought that the achievements which we chronicled at the end of the preceding chapter would remain without their immediate results. If such small vessels as the _Sirius_, propelled by steam, could cross the Atlantic and return safe and sound; if still more easily the _Great Western_ had been able to perform the feat and to show a substantial return on the capital laid out, surely there was an assured future for steamship enterprise. “What man has done, man can do,” is an old proverb, the application of which has led to the founding of those mighty, excellently equipped fleets which have transformed the trackless, desolate North Atlantic into a busy thoroughfare, along whose fixed routes every day of the year are carried thousands of passengers and tons of merchandise from one continent to the other. Although nowadays there is scarcely a corner of the world to which a regular line of steamships does not run, yet it is the North Atlantic that has always been the scene of the greatest enterprise in steamship development. We could find plenty of reasons for this if we cared to inquire into the matter. It was not until the advent of the transatlantic steamship that all the possibilities of the Tudor voyages and discoveries began to be appreciated fully. A continent, like a single country, flourishes not merely by its produce of wealth, but by its exchange thereof. So long as it is separated by thousands of miles, every fathom of which is fraught with danger and has to be traversed by sailing ships whose arrival may be weeks or months late, which may, in fact, never arrive at all, a tight restriction is kept on the exchange of wealth; stagnation ensues, people travel as little as possible, and remain ignorant in their own narrow provincialism. Whereas, to-day, they take every possible advantage of travel, of voyaging the world over, not merely to exchange wealth but to exchange ideas, to add to their knowledge, to wipe out their provincialism.
For this we must thank the coming of the liner.
It was that memorable year of 1838 that set all this going. Impressed by the obvious advantages which the steamship now showed for speed and reliability, the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, to whose care was then entrusted the arrangement of postal contracts, saw that those ancient “coffin brigs” were doomed. Their lordships forthwith issued circulars inviting tenders for the carrying of the American mails by steamers. It happened that one of these circulars fell into the hands of Samuel Cunard, a prominent merchant of Halifax, Nova Scotia. He had been anything but disconnected with shipping, for he was the owner of a number of sailing ships trading between Boston, Newfoundland and Bermuda, and was agent at Halifax for the East India Company, who in their time owned some of the very finest sailing fleets that ever put to sea. And this Samuel Cunard had been one of the shareholders of that first _Royal William_ which crossed in 1833 from Pictou, Nova Scotia, to the Isle of Wight. A man of energy and enterprise, he had already realised that a line of steamers connecting the two continents ought to become something real, and he had sufficient foresight to see that this was an opportunity which does not occur many times in a generation.
Having made up his mind, after reading this circular, the next thing was to find the money. In Halifax it was not possible to raise the required capital, so he crossed forthwith to London. But London is not always ahead of the provinces, and the wealthy merchants declined to show their financial interest in the scheme. Therefore, armed with a letter of introduction from the secretary of the East India Company, Mr. Cunard travelled north to Glasgow, to Mr. Robert Napier, whose name we have already mentioned as a great Clyde shipbuilder and engineer. Napier promised to give him all the assistance possible, and introduced him to Mr. George Burns, and the latter, in turn, to Mr. David MacIver. Both had an expert knowledge of the shipping business, and to a Scotch shrewdness united wide experience and ability to look ahead. As a result, within a few days the necessary capital of £270,000 had been subscribed, and an offer was made to the Admiralty for the conveyance of Her Majesty’s mails once a fortnight between Liverpool and Halifax and Boston. But the owners of the _Great Western_, with a ship all ready for the work, were not going to let so fine a chance slip by without an effort. They, too, competed for the privilege, though eventually the organisation with which Cunard was connected was considered to have made the more favourable tender. This was accepted by the Government, and a contract for seven years was signed. The three enterprisers went to their posts--Cunard to London, Burns to Glasgow, and MacIver to Liverpool, but before matters had taken a final shape the Government required that the service was to be carried on by four ships instead of three, that fixed dates of sailings should be adhered to, and in consideration of all this a subsidy was eventually granted to the steamship owners of the sum of £81,000 per year. The corporation which we now know as the Cunard Company was then called the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, and they proceeded to get in hand the building of those first four steamers of which the _Mauretania_ and _Lusitania_ to-day are the lineal descendants. These four, then, were respectively the _Britannia_, the _Acadia_, the _Caledonia_, and the _Columbia_. They were all built of wood, all propelled by paddle-wheels, specially adapted for the transport of troops and stores in the event of war, with an indicated horse-power of 740, accommodation for 115 cabin passengers, a cargo capacity of 225 tons, while their dimensions and tonnage differed but slightly the one ship from the other. Their speed averaged 8½ knots per hour on a coal consumption of thirty-eight tons a day, the engines in each case being not unnaturally made by that Robert Napier who had by his introduction done so much to bring the formation of this company to a practical conclusion. These vessels were built on the Clyde by four different builders in the year 1840, but the _Britannia_ was the first that was ready for service, her measurements being 207 feet long, 34 feet 4 inches wide, and 22 feet 6 inches deep, with a tonnage of 1,154.
Before we go on to outline the marvellous growth which has been seen under the Cunard Company’s flag, whose history is practically a history of the Atlantic liner, varied here and there by the happenings which other rival companies have brought about, it is both curious and amusing to append the following letter, which has only quite recently been made public, and which will surprise many of those who here read it. It is evidence of the remarkable speed at which events may happen, and men’s minds adapt themselves to newer conditions. Although Samuel Cunard was part owner of the first _Royal William_ in 1833, and already three years earlier had thought over the idea of starting a line of Atlantic steamers, yet it will be seen that towards the end of 1829 he was not favourably inclined to the project. Having in mind all that the Cunard Company has done towards the inauguration of the liner, her continuous improvements, her safety and her efficiency, it is instructive to read the reply which was sent at this time to Messrs. Ross and Primrose, of Pictou, Nova Scotia, who had written to Cunard and Company in regard to steamship establishment:--
“DEAR SIRS,--We have received your letter of the 22nd inst. We are entirely unacquainted with the cost of a steamboat, and would not like to embark in a business of which we are quite ignorant. Must, therefore, decline taking any part in the one you propose getting up.--We remain, yours, etc.
S. CUNARD AND COMPANY.
“_Halifax_, October 28th, 1829.”
The above letter is now in the possession of Mr. John M. Ross, of Pictou.
But to return to the first sailing of the new company: the _Britannia_ started the mail service in no conventional manner. Not merely was she to throw time-honoured custom to the winds by carrying the mails by the help of steam, but she dealt another blow to sailor-conservatism by setting forth on her maiden voyage on a Friday, which also happened to be the fourth of July, a day commemorative of another kind of Independence. Of course, the old-fashioned prophesied that so flagrant a disregard for superstition would spell disaster; but somehow the _Britannia_ managed to arrive quite safely at Boston, on July 18th, 1840, after a voyage of just eight hours beyond a fortnight, though she had touched at Halifax after eleven days, four hours. The citizens of Boston celebrated the event with banqueting and wild enthusiasm as the forging--shall we not say?--of the first of those stronger links which were to bind the two countries more closely and more securely together. Four years later, one bitter February, when this same _Britannia_ was hemmed in, icebound in Boston harbour, the same enthusiasts liberated her by cutting a canal seven miles long and a hundred feet wide through the ice, and this entirely at their own expense.
Facing page 102 will be seen an illustration of a model of this _Britannia_. Old paintings show her rigged as a barque, with a couple of ship’s boats in davits on either side, and another hung over the stern in a manner that will be familiar to those readers who have seen the American sailing schooners, and some of the Norwegian craft. The space for boilers and engines still causes that long gap between the fore- and main-mast that we mentioned earlier. The square stern, the old-fashioned bows, and her lines generally, show that this first Atlantic liner was hardly a thing of beauty, if even she is to be remembered for ever as the first of a new series. Her paddle-wheels were 28 feet in diameter, and had 21 floats, which measured 8 feet by 2.8 feet. The mean draught of this little ship was 16.8 feet. Her engines were of the side-lever type, of course, the making of which Napier understood so well. Steam was generated in four boilers with twelve furnaces, and there were two cylinders. As we have already dealt with the working of these engines we need do little more than ask the reader to turn to the next page, where he will find a sectional model of an engine very similar to that which was installed in these first four Cunard liners. The non-technical reader will find this some considerable help in following our previous references to engines of this type, and the section of the cylinder at the extreme left-hand of the picture will be found illustrative of the working of the piston inside the cylinder. As we are writing the story of the steamship, and not a history of engineering, we need not digress from our historical continuity, and we can now pass on to two other steamers built in 1841, for the Royal Mail Company. In the illustration facing this page will be seen the _Teviot_ and _Clyde_ respectively, the former being of 1,793 tons, the latter of 1,371 tons.
We have already spoken of the founding of the General Steam Navigation Company, and shall speak presently of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. Following the precedent set by the Cunard Company, the Royal Mail Line, on March 20th, 1840, entered into an agreement with the British Government by which the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company were “to provide, maintain, and keep seaworthy, and in complete repair and readiness, for the purpose of conveying all Her Majesty’s mails, a sufficient number (not less than fourteen) of good, substantial, and efficient steam vessels, of such construction and strength as to be fit and able to carry guns of the largest calibre now used on board of Her Majesty’s steam vessels of war, each of such vessels to be always supplied with first-rate appropriate steam engines of not less than 400 collective horse-power, and also a sufficient number--not less than four--of good, substantial, and efficient sailing vessels, of at least 100 tons burthen each.” Previous to this agreement, the Government had conveyed the mails to the West India Islands in gun-brigs, and in those days we must not forget that the seas were not the free highways that they are now.
[Illustration: THE “TEVIOT” AND “CLYDE” (1841).
_From a Painting in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
[Illustration: SIDE-LEVER ENGINE.
_From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
The contract was for ten years, and to take effect from December 1st, 1841. The fourteen ships were all named after British rivers, and many readers will be aware that this custom of the company has continued ever since, although in some cases the names of foreign rivers have also been thus employed. Some of these vessels were built at Northfleet on the Thames, others (including the _Teviot_ and _Clyde_) were built at Greenock, others at Dumbarton, Leith, and Cowes. The Lords of the Admiralty stipulated that the vessels should be built under their supervision, and a naval officer was put in charge of the mails on each steamer, and carried out a sort of supervision of the ship’s affairs, a boat’s crew being always at his service when the mails were being taken aboard or disembarked. The illustration facing page 112 shows the launch of the _Forth_ at Leith in 1841. This picture, which is taken from a contemporary painting, is worthy of perusal, as showing the close resemblance between the mercantile marine and naval architecture of the period. Strength rather than slim beauty, massiveness rather than fineness, formed the keynote both in the steam and sailing ships of that time. In the same year had already been launched the _Thames_ from Northfleet, and in the following year that vessel inaugurated this new service, setting forth, like the older packets, from Falmouth. The voyage from there to the West Indies took about eighteen days, but exceptional runs were done in seventeen days.
This new steamship departure was an undoubted success, and the Admiralty admitted that even the Government, with all its naval resources, could not have succeeded so well as this private company in getting together and ready for sea in so short a time so many large and well-equipped new steamers. Financially this meant a very large outlay, and there was not much less than a million of money expended on this first fleet. It should be stated, however, that the Government subsidised the concern by a grant of £240,000 per annum. Presently Falmouth gave way to Southampton as the headquarters of the Royal Mail fleet. To-day there are so many big liners calling at the Hampshire port, and there is at all times of the day so continuous a procession of all kinds of large steamships, that it is difficult to realise that in those days this was comparatively a small port.
It was only natural that, as soon as ever the West Indian service should have proved itself successful, a branch should be extended to the South American Continent. In 1846, therefore, the company organised a means of transit by mules and canoes across the Isthmus of Panama, which were in 1855 superseded by the Panama Railroad. Although we are departing from our historical sequence in the development of the steamship, it is convenient here to sketch very rapidly the progress of the Royal Mail Line farther still, for the evolution of a steamship company is not necessarily that of the steamship. A small company may be famous for having one or two ships that are always the last word in modern ship-building and marine engineering; a large company may possess a considerable aggregate of tonnage, but its ships may be behind the lead of others in improvements. For the moment we are considering the enterprise which enabled the early steamships to penetrate to distant, over-sea territories where the Elizabethan sailors had gone in their slow-going ships scarcely three centuries before.
[Illustration: LAUNCH OF THE “FORTH” (1841).
_By Permission of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co._]
[Illustration: THE “WILLIAM FAWCETT” AND H.M.S. “QUEEN” (1829).
_From the Painting by Frank Murray in the possession of the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co._]
In 1851 the Royal Mail Line service to South America began, and about 1869 those steamers which had stopped short at Brazil, and served the Argentine by transfer, continued their voyage to Buenos Ayres. In the course of time it was only to be expected that the heavy subsidy should be reduced. It dwindled down to £85,000 a year, and was finally allowed to vanish altogether as recently as June, 1905. Since then the Royal Mail Company has extended its West Indian service to New York via Jamaica. During the Crimean War some of the vessels of this line did good service as transports, and even more recently still during the South African War. It was on one of the vessels of this line that, during the American Civil War, an incident occurred which was of international importance. The ship which was brought so prominently into notice was the _Trent_, that had been launched at Northfleet. Some readers will doubtless remember that Messrs. Slidell and Mason were forcibly taken from this vessel by a Federal man-of-war, and that Lord Palmerston, by his action in the matter, set forth that valuable doctrine, still recognised, that an individual on board a British ship is as safe from foreign interference as if he were on British soil.
It was in 1840, also, that the Pacific Steam Navigation Company was granted its charter, and its history is, so to speak, a complement of that of the Royal Mail Company.[B] After the latter had extended its service to the Isthmus of Panama, and established a means of transit across to the western coast, it was evident that the Pacific littoral was ready for the steamship, and this the Pacific Steam Navigation Company now supplied. In the olden days the sailing ship had been the only means of doing this, but that meant braving the terrors of Cape Horn, as many of the surviving sailing ships do to this day. But the enterprise of the Royal Mail Line on the one side of the narrow neck separating North from South America, and the co-operation of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company on the other, together with the intervening land-journey, brought the inhabitants of the Southern Pacific much nearer to Europe. The Panama Canal, which is promised for opening in 1915, was thus foreshadowed. Sending round its two steamers, the _Chile_ and _Peru_, to the west coast, the Pacific Company opened up a new sphere of commerce, and these two steamships were the very first steam-propelled craft that ever passed through the Straits of Magellan.
[B] The Royal Mail Co. has now absorbed the Pacific Steam Navigation Co.
The foundation of the Peninsular Company dates back as far as 1837. Even a year or two before then its ships had commenced running to the Peninsula, but at the time mentioned a regular service of mail packets from London to Lisbon and Gibraltar was instituted. Here again we find the existence of a contract between the Admiralty and a steamship company for the carrying of the mails, but it was not until 1840 that the line was extended to Malta and Alexandria, and was incorporated by Royal Charter under the now well-known title of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, with a view to carrying on operations in the Far East. The lower illustration facing page 112 shows the first steamship owned by the Peninsular Company, a little paddle vessel of only 209 tons. This was the _William Fawcett_, which was built in the year 1829. She measured 74 feet long, only 16 feet wide, developed 60 horse-power, and was engaged in the trade between England, Lisbon, and Gibraltar. But the first steamer which the newly incorporated company dispatched to India, via the Cape of Good Hope, was the _Hindostan_, a vessel of 1,800 tons, and 500 horse-power. She began her voyage from England in September, 1842, and her departure was a memorable event when we consider all that was destined to follow therefrom, and how certainly it meant the ending of the careers of those fine East India sailing ships which had been brought to such a high state of perfection ere steam had appeared on the sea. The _Hindostan_ was a three-masted vessel with a long bowsprit, “steeved” at a big angle, setting yards on her fore-mast for fore-sail, topsail and t’gallant, while her main and mizen were fore-and-aft rigged. She is interesting as having not one but two funnels, the first being placed very far forward, just abaft the fore-mast, whilst the other was immediately in front of the main-mast. The distance between the two funnels was great, for the purpose already indicated. The _Hindostan_ was followed by other steamers, and in 1844 the P. and O. Company undertook a mail service between England and Alexandria, and so from Suez to Ceylon, Calcutta, and China.
Of course, as yet, there was no Suez Canal, so that, in a manner similar to that across the Isthmus of Panama, an overland route had to be instituted for passengers, cargo, and mails across the Isthmus of Suez. The P. and O. Company had, then, to land their passengers at Alexandria, and just as canoes and mules had to be employed in America, so boats and camels were requisitioned in Africa. But it was a complicated journey, for this “overland” route was mostly an over-water route. By means of the Mahmoudieh Canal the passengers and goods were sent from Alexandria to the Nile, whence they proceeded by steamer to Cairo. From there they travelled through the desert to Suez. Three thousand camels had to be employed for transporting a single steamer’s loading; every package had to be subjected to three separate transfers, and the inconvenience was indeed considerable. But for nearly twenty years this system continued.
Steam communication was inaugurated by the company with Australia in 1852, by means of a branch line from Singapore, and two years later the service between Suez and Bombay was absorbed by the P. and O. Company. This had been retained hitherto by the East India Company in order to keep alive their navy. In 1869, came the opening of the Suez Canal, and it was essentially the steamship and not the sailing ship which brought this about, although the Suez Railway preceded the canal by ten years. It is not generally known, perhaps, that a continuous waterway had already existed long years before. In the times of the early Egyptians there had been a canal which connected the Nile with the Red Sea, so that ships could circumnavigate Africa and, returning by the Mediterranean, could come out through the Nile into the Red Sea again. But the Suez Canal had not been demanded so long as the steamship remained undeveloped, and even for some time after the traffic to Australia and New Zealand was principally carried on in those handsome clipper-ships which were representative of the finest examples of the sailing ship. It is only by means of the steamship that it is possible to bring across so many thousands of miles the great quantities of frozen meat and other perishable foods which now reach this country, and the Suez Canal certainly assisted to make this possible. Not merely did the steamship indirectly bring about the Canal, but the latter increased the steamship’s sphere of usefulness.
About the time when the Suez Canal was opened the practical adoption of the compound engine was taking place in the mercantile marine. This idea had been introduced about 1856 by Messrs. Randolph Elder and Company, and had been installed in the ships of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company. In explanation of this system we may say at once that its great advantage lay in the fact that it reduced the coal consumption to just about half of what it had been hitherto in the most economical engines. The principle is based on the fact that steam possesses elastic properties which can be put to excellent use. Put simply, the compound engine allows the steam to enter one cylinder at high pressure, and, after it has moved the piston, escapes into one (or more) cylinders of larger size, where it does its work by direct expansion, and so much more work is done at little expense. The expression “triple expansion,” which frequently confronts the reader interesting himself in steamships, simply means that the steam is expanded one stage further. Quadruple expansion is the same idea pushed still another stage. When about twenty years ago the triple expansion system was brought in, the steam pressures were increased from 125 lb. to 160 lb. per square inch, and so the coal consumption was reduced also. But the triple expansion had been preceded by the compound and the low pressure engine, just as it was followed by the quadruple.
The opening of the Suez Canal was not devoid of side issues, for it took away that monopoly which the P. and O. had enjoyed, since the world’s steamships now poured in and began to go eastward and back again. There was difficulty with the Post Office, who refused to allow the Canal route for the conveyance of mails, on the ground that it was not so suitable as the Egyptian Railway, and it was not until 1888, when the charge for carrying the mails had been reduced by nearly £100,000 a year, that the accelerated mails sent via Brindisi were transferred to the Canal route, although the heavy mails had already been carried by it. But the P. and O. were unlucky in another way. The _Mooltan_, their first ship to be installed with the compound engine, in 1860, had proved such a success that several other steamers of the line were thus fitted, but the result was disappointing. Although it was quite clear that this type of engine made for economy, yet it was found unreliable, and in some cases had to be replaced by less complex machinery.
We have now been able to see steamship lines established and sending their fleets regularly with passengers, cargoes, and mails to the uttermost ends of the earth, and we have been able to look ahead a little so that we shall be free to concentrate our attention very shortly on that centre of steamship activity the North Atlantic. Between 1840 and 1860 the Cunard Company had practically a monopoly of the Atlantic trade. For a time the American clippers hung on, but as they had ousted the old brigs, even the fastest sailing vessels were replaced by the steamship. From 1850 to 1858 there was, indeed, some opposition from a steamship company called the Collins Line, which had been subsidised by the American Government. This competition was very keen, for both lines were compelled to put forth the best steamers they could, but in the end the Collins Line withdrew from the contest.
[Illustration: DESIGNS FOR SCREW PROPELLERS PRIOR TO 1850.
_From the Drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
But there was now another force coming in, which was to entirely alter the character of the liner. Let us trace the evolution of the screw propeller, which has completely banished the old-fashioned paddle-wheel from its place in the ocean-going ship, and is rapidly having the same effect in cross-Channel steamers. We saw that away back in 1804 John Stevens had crossed the Hudson in a little ship that was driven along by a screw propeller, but it was not until the year 1836 that the screw was re-introduced. In this year John Ericsson, a Swedish engineer, obtained a patent for his invention which consisted of two drums, on whose exteriors were seven helical blades, the interior of each drum having the three blades which formed the radii of the circle. Both these drums worked on one axis, and were placed behind the rudder, and not in front of it as is the modern propeller. If the reader will turn to the plate facing page 118, he will see this at the beginning of the second line to the left. The drums were made to work in opposite directions, the object being to avoid loss due to the rotary motion already remaining in the water discharged by a single screw.
Ericsson applied this invention to the _Francis B. Ogden_, which was built in 1837. She was 45 feet long, and was driven by a two-cylinder steam engine with a boiler pressure of 50 lb. The result of the experiment showed that she could tow a vessel of 630 tons burthen at 4½ knots against the tide. The following year a larger vessel, the _Robert F. Stockton_, was built by Laird Brothers, and attained a speed of thirteen knots on the Thames, with the tide in her favour. Afterwards she crossed the Atlantic, but under canvas, and was turned into a tug as the _New Jersey_, for work in New York waters. The illustration facing page 120, which has been lent by Messrs. Cammell, Laird and Company, Limited, of Birkenhead, shows her rigged as a topsail schooner under sail and steam. Her measurements were 63.4 feet long, 10 feet beam, 7 feet deep, with a register of 33 tons, and engines of 30 horsepower. Although she was the first screw steamer to cross the Atlantic, yet her voyage is interesting rather as a fairly daring trip of a small sailing ship than as proving the reliability of the screw propeller.
But at the same time that Ericsson was working at his idea, Francis Smith, an Englishman, who was afterwards knighted, was also engaged at the same problem, though his method of solution was of a different nature, as will be seen by a reference to the last illustration on the first line of the plate facing page 118. His patent was granted in the same year as Ericsson’s, and was tried with success the year after on the Paddington Canal. Smith was a farmer at Hendon, and had already experimented with a model driven by clockwork on a farm pond, just as Fulton had carried out his early experiments with a clockwork model in a tank. The next step was to repeat the experiment on a six-ton boat which was driven by a steam engine, the propeller being, like those of the modern aeroplanes, of wood. It was while thus experimenting that an interesting accident happened, for about one-half of the screw thus shown in the illustration was broken off, and to everyone’s surprise the boat instantly began to leap forward at a quicker speed. Later the boat was fitted with a screw having one turn instead of two, and made of metal instead of wood, and in this small craft Smith cruised as far as Folkestone. Her speed was 5½ knots.
[Illustration: THE “ROBERT F. STOCKTON” (1838).
_Photograph supplied by Messrs. Cammell, Laird & Co., Limited, Birkenhead._]
[Illustration: THE “ARCHIMEDES” (1839).
_From a Contemporary Print._]
From these satisfactory results made by the six-tonner _Francis Smith_, sufficient interest was aroused to form a syndicate to test the proposition commercially, and to purchase Smith’s patents. The result was that the _Archimedes_, of 240 tons, was launched from Limehouse in November, 1838, and fitted with Smith’s screw. It must be recollected that the same old obstinacy was still very much alive that had hindered other inventions connected with the ship, and it was not until the _Archimedes_ had toured round Great Britain, and steamed across the Bay of Biscay and back without mishap, that people began to believe in this new method of propulsion. To-day everyone knows how entirely dominated by the screw the steamship now is, and that the paddle-wheel belongs almost exclusively to the excursion passenger steamer.
Of course, Smith’s propeller was very different in expression from the shape in use to-day, but the last word as to the ideal shape and size of the screw has even yet to be said. It would be interesting to detail all the attempts which have been made by different inventors to deal with the screw, but their name is legion, and our space will not permit. An idea, however, can be obtained of the various forms of screw propellers patented in England before 1850 from the plate facing page 118, to which we have already called attention.
The lower illustration facing page 120, which is taken from a contemporary aquatint, shows the _Archimedes_ on her voyage from London to Portsmouth in the year 1839, when she attained a speed of eight knots against both wind and tide. Facing page 122 is reproduced a model of her stern framing before being planked up. As a further test of this screw idea Wimshurst, who had built the _Archimedes_, launched the _Novelty_ in 1839, a much larger vessel than her predecessor. The _Novelty_ will be seen in the next illustration, and in her we see the “screw” vanishing and becoming more assimilated to the modern propeller. Originally the corkscrew shape entitled it to be called a screw; but the evolution of time and experience has now considerably altered this. It will be noticed that in the _Archimedes_ the screw is a little distance away from the stern-post, but as seen in the _Novelty_ the propeller is put right close up against it. This _Novelty_ was the first cargo steamer fitted with a screw, and made her inaugural trading voyage from London to Constantinople and back with entire success. She is interesting also as having been the first ship to be fitted with an iron mast. This material was employed for the mizen, the other masts were of wood; her rig was that of a barque. For some years after the introduction of the screw, and so long as sails were still retained as auxiliaries, there had to be some means of overcoming the resistance of the screw when not in use and the ship was proceeding under sail power. This was done either by fixing the blades so that they caused the minimum drag, or by lifting the screw into a well. The _Novelty_ lifted hers on deck over the quarter by means of davits. This arrangement will also be seen in the illustration. This idea is now obsolete, since sails are but rarely employed as auxiliaries.
[Illustration: STERN OF THE “ARCHIMEDES.”
_From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
[Illustration: THE “NOVELTY” (1839).
_From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
Now the introduction of the propeller was not so simple an event as the reader might imagine. Ordinarily, one is tempted to argue that it was merely a case of putting the power aft instead of at either side, as in the use of the paddle-wheels. But, in fact, the introduction of the screw opened up a new set of problems connected with ship design. In the early days the design of a ship’s stern, both in the sailing ship and the steamer, was badly neglected. Later on the improved lines of the clipper sailing ships certainly did much to improve matters. I referred at the beginning of the previous chapter to the manner in which a vessel going ahead moves the water in which she floats, and how the eddies round the stern impede her advance. Now when a propeller revolves, much of its power is, even nowadays, wasted by what is called “slip”--that is to say, by the yielding of the water so that the screw does not progress to the full extent of its “pitch.” (The “pitch” of a propeller is the amount of distance which is represented by one whole turn of the thread. We could measure, for instance, the “pitch” of a corkscrew by the distance which it would penetrate in a cork.) Even after years of experiments and improvements the wake at the end of a steamship tends to reduce the speed of the water past the propeller, but when first the screw experiments were conducted the design of the afterbody of a ship’s hull was so carelessly considered that the “slip” of the propeller was considerable. There is also to be taken into account the fact that by the rounding in of the “stream lines” at the stern the vessel receives a pressure which helps her forward. When, however, a propeller is added to a ship and set in motion it disturbs this helping-forward movement, and in a ship fitted with only a single screw this disturbance is even greater than in a twin-screw steamer, because the latter has her propellers placed well out, away from the hull. We need not here pursue the subject further; it is enough now to show that every improvement in the steamship began a new chapter of problems, introduced difficulties that could never have been anticipated, which time and patience alone can solve satisfactorily.
And so we come to the construction of the _Great Britain_, of which the model is illustrated opposite page 126. Let us recollect that it was only in 1836 that the little six-ton launch _Francis Smith_ had been built, and that it was only three years later that the _Archimedes_ showed by her successful voyages that the screw method of propulsion was no fanciful, impracticable theory. In this same year, 1839, there began to be built a still more wonderful screw steamer. The Great Western Steamship Company had already been so satisfied with the _Great Western_ that they believed that a far larger ship would be even still more profitable. Therefore, Brunel was again consulted, and he reported that already the furthest limit of long ships built of wood was reached. There was no alternative but to construct her of iron, for the reasons that I explained some time since. Iron had already been used in ship-building for barges and also for steamboats, but on no large scale. Aaron Manby, in conjunction with Charles Napier, had built the first iron steamboat as far back as 1821. This ship had been conveyed in sections from Horseley, where she was made, to the Surrey Canal Dock, and there put together. After being tried on the Thames on May 9th, 1822, she steamed away the next month with Napier in command, and Manby as engineer, arriving in Paris on the eleventh of the same month. She was thus not merely the first iron steamship, but the first iron ship that ever put to sea. For the next twenty years she continued to ply on the Seine. Napier was the financier of the attempt to promote iron steamers on the French river, but by 1827 the slump in the steamboat had taken an acute form, and he was left a comparatively poor man. But in 1832 the _Lady Lansdowne_ was built by John Laird of Birkenhead for the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, and she was the first iron steamer constructed with the intention of performing sea-service. She was a paddle-boat, and measured 133 feet long, 17 feet wide, with a tonnage of 148 and a nominal horse-power of 90. Later still the _Robert F. Stockton_, to which we have alluded, was also of iron.
But the _Great Britain_ was to be 322 feet long, with a beam of 50½ feet, and a displacement of 3,618 tons, with a cargo capacity of 1,200 tons, able to carry also 1,000 tons of coal, and 260 passengers. To build such a big lump of a boat as this was to be a very grave undertaking indeed. In fact, no contractor could be found who would undertake the construction of the ship or her engines. She was something out of the unknown; there were no data upon which to base calculations. Brunel, therefore, made out the designs and the Great Western Company with great daring proceeded to lay down plans for building her themselves at Bristol. This was in 1839. It was intended to give her the usual paddle-wheel engines, but the _Archimedes_ arrived at this port, and the success of her screw propulsion caused Brunel to modify his designs so that the _Great Britain_ should become not only the largest iron ship ever built, but the largest screw steamer.
It was originally intended to name her the _Mammoth_, but she had better been called the _White Elephant_, for all the use she was afterwards to her owners. Her rig was like nothing afloat, and the vocabulary of nautical terms contains no adequate description. From our illustration it will be seen that she had six masts. On all except the second she carried fore-and-aft canvas, but this second mast carried two yards and square sails. Forward she had a bowsprit and triangular headsails. In sail area alone she carried 1,700 yards of canvas, and in length the hull was 100 feet in excess of the largest line-of-battleship afloat. She was actually floated on July 19th, 1843, but it was not until December of the following year that she was able to enter the river, owing to the delay in the alteration of the dock. In the meantime her engines had been put aboard, and on July 26th, 1845, after trips to London and Liverpool, she left the latter port with sixty passengers, and 600 tons of cargo for the Atlantic run. She arrived in New York after a fifteen days’ passage, with an average speed of 9¼ knots. On the homeward voyage her best day’s run was 287 miles. The illustration facing page 126 is from a model of her six-bladed propeller, with which originally she was fitted; but on one of her voyages she had the misfortune to break this and proceeded to Liverpool under her canvas. A new propeller was then fitted which had but four blades, but later on she again resorted to the original number. She continued her Atlantic voyages until 1846, when she ran ashore off the Irish coast in Dundrum Bay during the month of September, and remained for eleven months exposed to the terrible wintry weather; but Brunel had a wooden breakwater, loaded with stones, constructed round her, and she was eventually re-floated and taken to Liverpool, and though her bottom was naturally considerably damaged, yet the mere fact that she had been able to survive at all showed that confidence might be placed in iron as a material for ship-building. But by this time her owners had had enough of her, and she was sold for less than one quarter of the £100,000 she had cost. After alterations to her rig and her engines, she was employed in the Australian trade. She was next relieved of her engines, and turned into a sailing vessel, and then used as a coal-hulk off the Falkland Islands. Finally she was broken up at Barrow.
[Illustration: THE “GREAT BRITAIN” (1843).
_From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
[Illustration: PROPELLER OF THE “GREAT BRITAIN.”
_From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
But apart from her size, the _Great Britain_ possessed other novel features which are worthy of notice. We have already remarked that as the length of ships increased, so did the longitudinal strain, and new methods had to be devised in order to overcome this. The _Great Britain_ was specially strengthened longitudinally, and furthermore she was divided into five water-tight compartments. The original purpose of transverse bulkheads was that if a vessel were holed by collision or grounding, or--in the case of naval vessels--pierced by shell, she might yet remain afloat. Nowadays they do more than this, for, when carried up to the strong deck, they add to the longitudinal strength of the ship. The _Great Britain_ also possessed another novelty, in bilge keels, which extended for about one-third of her length. The object of these, which are so well-known a feature of modern steamships, was to lessen rolling. Her bulwarks consisted of iron rails with netting running round the ship. Here, again, was a new departure. In the older ships the heavy wooden bulwarks were a relic of the days when the guns were sheltered behind them; but from the view of seaworthiness they were really a false safety. If a heavy sea were shipped, the water was held in and not allowed to get away easily; in the case of the _Great Britain_ the water could escape just as quickly as it came aboard.
Facing page 128 will be seen a reproduction of a model of the _Great Britain’s_ engines, as originally placed in her before she ran ashore. Steam was generated in a double-ended boiler. The nominal horse-power was 1,000, but twice that amount could be obtained, and a speed of over 12 knots. There were four direct-acting cylinders--of which two will be seen in the foreground of the illustration--placed as low down in the ship as possible. The early engines which were used for the screw did not drive the latter directly, and on reference to the illustration it will be seen that in the centre of the crank shaft was a drum, which was connected with another drum just below it on the propeller shaft by means of four chains.
When referring to the side-lever engines in a former chapter, I drew attention to the fact that in spite of their virtues they had the great drawback of taking up a great deal of space. The second illustration facing page 128 represents an attempt to overcome this disadvantage. As will be seen on examining the lower part of the engines, the lever has now become very small in size. It will be noticed that there are two inverted cylinders, whose piston-rods are connected by a cross-head, the latter being guided by lever parallel movement, and from it the power was conveyed by means of a connecting rod to the crank on the paddle-wheel shaft. The connecting rod can be seen between the two cylinders in the illustration. These engines were made in 1843 for the _Helen McGregor_, a paddle-steamer engaged in the Hull-Hamburg trade. She was of 573 tons, and was one of the largest ships of her class.
[Illustration: ENGINES OF THE “GREAT BRITAIN.”
_From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
[Illustration: ENGINES OF THE “HELEN McGREGOR.”
_From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
It was not until 1852 that the Cunard Company were so thoroughly convinced of the capabilities of either iron ship-building or the screw propeller as to give both a trial. Four iron screw steamers were then built, and these were the first owned by this line which were fitted with accommodation for emigrants. The next year six more iron screw steamers were added, and connection formed with the chief ports of the Mediterranean; and when the Crimean War broke out a number of the Cunard ships were employed as transports. But from one reason and another the screw propeller had not found general favour among passengers. The vibration it caused, its unpleasant “racing” in bad weather, and the new motion as compared to that of the old paddle-wheel, allied to the usual obstinate temperament, showed that the earlier type had still to be retained for a while. Following on the medieval custom, the stern of these early steamships was still regarded as the place of honour, and the saloon passengers were accordingly placed abaft the machinery, which was amidships. Thus placed, the traveller was doubtfully privileged, for the close proximity of the propeller made life on shipboard exceedingly trying to the nerves, and there were many who, having voyaged in the old ocean-going sailing ships, looked back with mixed feelings to the longer but less nerve-racking journeys. The strain on the early screw engine was very considerable when the vessel was pitching fore and aft into the Atlantic seas. Being of comparatively small size, its movements in such circumstances were far more lively than in a modern, lengthy liner, which is able to stretch over a longer span. Consequently, as the bow came down into the sea and the stern rose out, the propeller was much more prone to race wildly, and the gearing, such as we saw in the engines of the _Great Britain_, was not infrequently unable to endure the terrible strain to which it was put. It was for this reason that the screw engines were afterwards made direct-acting.
The Cunard Company decided to build their next ship of iron, but with paddle-wheels. This was the _Persia_, launched in 1856, a vessel of 3,300 tons burthen, with accommodation for 250 passengers. But she was even surpassed by the _Scotia_, which was built in 1862, and is interesting as being the last and the finest paddle-ship which was ever made for their Atlantic service. An illustration of this vessel will be found opposite page 130. She was fitted with the greatest luxury of the time, to carry 275 cabin passengers, had seven water-tight compartments, and a double bottom, so that even if she should have had the bad luck to run ashore she would still most probably be able to endure. Nowadays most steamships are fitted with this excellent arrangement, which was first adopted in the _Great Eastern_, through the ingenuity of Brunel, to which we shall refer presently. But the _Scotia_ turned out to be also a fast boat, and materially altered the time spent in crossing the Atlantic; she lowered the record to just two hours under the nine days. Her engines were of the familiar side-lever type, and were the finest examples of their kind that were ever made. The cylinders were 100 feet in diameter, and steam at 20 lb. pressure was supplied by eight boilers with forty furnaces, the speed attained being 13½ knots per hour; her daily coal consumption was 159 tons. She could carry 1,800 tons of coal, and was exceedingly strongly constructed. We can obtain some idea of those paddle-wheels shown in the illustration when we remark that they were no less than 40 feet in diameter. She was afterwards turned into a “telegraph” ship for use in cable-laying, and her paddles changed for twin screws. It was not until about 1896 that her water-tight bulkheads were put to practical use; for as the result of an explosion on board of vapour from spirit her bow was blown out of her, and the water began to rush in. Her collision bulkhead was also damaged, but happily the second bulkhead saved the ship from foundering.
[Illustration: THE “SCOTIA” (1862).
_From a Painting. By Permission of the Cunard Steamship Co._]
[Illustration: THE “PACIFIC” (1853).
_From a Painting in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
Turning our attention away from the North Atlantic for a while, we shall be able to see that steamships on other routes were now fast passing from the olden types, when designers and builders were working with only a minimum of data on which to base their achievements. We have already referred to the highly important knowledge which was gradually being obtained concerning the relations between the hull of a ship and the water in which she is floated. One of the greatest authorities on this subject about the middle of the last century was John Scott Russell, who worked out a theory regarding the resistance of the ship passing through the water. He it was who contended that the hull should only move the water out of the way sufficiently to allow the widest section of the ship to pass through, and to do this in such a manner as should cause the least amount of friction and disturbance of the water, so that, when the ship was gone by, the
## particles of water should be restored to their original quietude. It is
important to bear in mind that the design of a ship must be made with regard to the speed which it is intended to get out of her. Thus, it is now a well-known principle that to give a ship highly powerful engines so that she is forced beyond her proper speed only makes the waves diverge from the sides and waste themselves instead of travelling with the vessel and giving it a forward impetus.
The model of the hull in the illustration facing page 134 represents the steamship _Victoria_, which was built in 1852 of iron, and designed by those two great geniuses Brunel and Scott Russell for the Australian Royal Mail Steam Navigation Company. Even the least practised eye on looking at her lines can see that she possessed speed, and it was this ship that gained the £500 prize offered by the Colonies for the fastest voyage to Australia, her time from Gravesend to Adelaide being sixty days, including two days’ delay at St. Vincent. The _Victoria_ was designed as embodying the wave-line theory and for a speed of ten knots. It is not necessary to examine this model many moments before one realises how unmistakably the clumsy, ponderous hulls so characteristic of earlier years were now being replaced by sweet, graceful, non-resisting features. The hull of the _Victoria_ was separated into a dozen water-tight compartments and displaced 3,000 tons, her length being 261 feet, with a breadth of 38 feet, or approximately seven beams to the length. She had a two-bladed screw, and when this was not in use, and the _Victoria_ proceeded under sail-power alone, the propeller was fixed vertically. Thus arranged, the ship could sail 5½ knots, but it is interesting to remark that when the screw was allowed to revolve freely the speed of the ship was increased another couple of knots.
[Illustration: MAUDSLAY’S OSCILLATING ENGINE.
_From the Original in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
[Illustration: ENGINES OF THE “CANDIA.”
_From the Drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
It was in this ship that a type of engine was fitted to which, so far, we have not referred. This was the oscillating kind, and was destined to become pretty well universal in paddle-ships, though not without serious opposition at one time. This type had been patented as far back as 1827, by Joseph Maudslay, and in the _Aaron Manby_, already mentioned, the machinery was of an oscillating nature, for which Manby had obtained a patent in 1821, but even farther back still--in 1785--William Murdoch had proposed the use of oscillating cylinders. It is only fair to Maudslay to say that he had independently worked out this arrangement, and so afforded yet another instance of the possibility, which I have enunciated before, of different inventors working at the same set of problems and bringing about a similar method of solution. In the accompanying illustration is shown Maudslay’s original oscillating engine. In this type the cylinders, instead of being fixed, oscillate, and the necessity of the connecting rod is dispensed with, for the cylinder is placed immediately underneath the crank shaft, as a reference to the illustration will show. Each cylinder is mounted on trunnions in the same manner as a cannon, being placed at a point about the middle of the cylinder’s length, so that it can swing, or oscillate, in such a way as to correspond with the arc which the crank makes in its movement. Thus there are both weight and valuable space saved. In the instance before us the condenser is placed between the two cylinders; the central trunnions communicate with the condenser, and the outside trunnions with the steam pipe. But Maudslay’s engines did not at that time find the appreciation which had been hoped for, and it was not until 1838, when they were re-introduced by John Penn, that they received their full favour. We shall return to the oscillating type when we come to consider the _Great Eastern_. But we may remark that the interesting steamship illustrated opposite page 130 was also provided with the oscillating pattern. This is the packet steamer _Pacific_, which was built in 1853 for the Mediterranean service, and is another example of a vessel constructed on the wave-line system. She was built of iron, and had nine water-tight compartments.
The _Pacific_ was interesting in another feature, in that she generated her steam in four tubular boilers, each of which had five furnaces. Briefly the evolution of the boiler had been on this wise: As originally fitted in the _Clermont_ and _Comet_ it was simply a water-tank set in brickwork, and was nearly full of water, with the fire outside, or, to use the expression generally employed, “externally fired.” In those days the pressure of the steam was not greater than the pressure of the air, which we saw to be 15 lb. to the square inch. Then came a modification of this in which the furnace was placed inside the boiler, the advantage being that, with the water all round, the latter could be the more readily heated. This developed into the marine “box” boiler, with internal flat-sided flues and furnaces. This type continued to be fairly universal until about 1845, but the utmost pressure of steam which these were capable of enduring was not above 35 lb. or thereabouts. But tubes instead of the flat flues began to be introduced about the year 1850, owing to the suggestion of the Earl of Dundonald, and these were to be of about double the diameter of those which had been common to locomotives for the previous twenty years. The pressure was soon raised considerably, but there was a strong prejudice against using high pressures at sea, and the idea was not encouraged.
[Illustration: THE “VICTORIA” (1852).
_From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
[Illustration: THE “HIMALAYA” (1853).
_From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
[Illustration: COASTING CARGO STEAMER (1855).
_From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
In the same year that the _Pacific_ took the water was launched the _Himalaya_, of which a beautiful little model is here illustrated. She was built for the P. and O. Line. This fine ship-rigged steamship was constructed of iron at Blackwall in 1853, and in the following year was bought by the British Government and steamed away from Plymouth with soldiers for the Crimea. She was of 4,690 tons displacement, and in that year made a record run from Gibraltar at an average speed of 13½ knots. Originally she had been built for carrying both cargo and passengers, but now she is, or was, ending her sphere of usefulness as a coal hulk at Devonport. Her coal “endurance”--she could carry 1,200 tons--made her a valuable asset, and her six water-tight bulkheads rendered her still more efficient. As will be seen from the illustration, she had a single propeller, and this was driven by yet another type of engine, which we have now to consider. We refer to the vertical trunk engine. We shall be able to understand this better if we examine the illustration facing page 132, which reproduces a drawing of a similar type of engines installed in the P. and O. _Candia_, built a year later than the _Himalaya_. In the trunk engine the piston-rod was done away with, so that the connecting rod is attached directly to the piston within a trunk or tube. This trunk passes through a steam-tight stuffing-box in the cylinder cover, and is made wide enough to allow of the lateral vibrations of the connecting rod inside. As long as steam pressures did not exceed 35 lb. this proved to be satisfactory; but the friction of the stuffing-boxes when they became of large dimensions was a serious drawback. The _Candia_, for which these engines were made, was a screw ship, and the cylinders were placed in a fore-and-aft position. By means of this type of engine, employing trunks, the height required was greatly lessened, and it was not necessary, as will have been noticed was essential in the case of the _Great Britain’s_ engines, that part of them should come up through the deck. Thus, the trunk type meant a saving of valuable space. Between the cylinders were arranged the condensers, which were of the jet type. We may stop to remind the reader that the condenser had been the invention of Watt, who had improved on the Newcomen engine not merely by covering over the top of the cylinder, but by condensing the exhausted steam in a separate vessel, called a condenser. This condensation he brought about by means of a jet of cold water, and the same principle was still employed in the _Candia_. Condensation having taken place, the water thus formed, together with any air which has got in, is then drawn off by the air-pumps, which will be seen in the illustration to be worked from an intermediate crank. It will be remarked on glancing at the left of the picture that the _Candia’s_ crank shaft was connected with the propeller shaft by means of spur gearing, which doubled the speed of the screw, and so of the ship, but yet allowed the actual engines to run comparatively slowly. This toothed wheel idea was a better method than that employed in the _Great Britain’s_ engines, though it was only just one stage better. There was a rooted objection in the early days of the screw to running the engines at a great speed, and thus it was only by some such means of gearing that the propeller was made to revolve quickly. In the course of time, when a wider experience and knowledge of engineering matters had been obtained, the gearing was done away with and the engines became direct-acting, and so there ensued far less friction, an absence of complication, and less expense caused by gearing. At the same time the power obtained by the newer method became more direct.
A customary apparatus nowadays adopted for steamships is the surface condenser, and in the effort to increase the steam pressures this has been a potent factor. But it had already been tried by Watt, by David Napier, and re-introduced by Samuel Hall in 1831. The surface condenser consists of a number of brass tubes about three quarters of an inch in diameter, through which a stream of cold water circulates. This necessarily keeps the pipes cool, and thus condenses the exhaust steam which is thrown on to them from the cylinder; it is practically a kind of tubular boiler. Instead of the jet, as in the older form of condenser, it is the outside of the pipes which performs the office, and the air-pump does its work as before. The condensed steam is now available for feeding the boiler, and after being filtered the feed pump draws it into a heater and thence it is led into the boiler once more. If the reader will now turn to the illustration facing page 132 once more, he will see in the right hand of the picture that in the _Candia_ the feed and bilge pumps were worked by small beams from an eccentric.
By being able to use this water for the boilers a great economy was effected, but in some of the P. and O. liners the boilers suffered rather badly, since an injurious chemical action was set up owing to the continuous return of the same water backwards and forwards from the condenser. Nowadays the problems connected with the condenser have been fully mastered, and the advantage of being able to use distilled water is obvious; for one of the surest and quickest methods of bringing about ruin is to use sea-water for the boiler, over which it will lay a thick crust of salt.
The third illustration facing page 134 is interesting as representative of a type of coasting steamer introduced about the year 1855. She shows very well the simplest form of an iron ship propelled with a screw, and evinces sufficient resemblance to the dying sailing ship before the steamer had taken on a distinctive character of her own. In a word, here is the steamship not in her crudity, as in the case of the _Clermont_, but certainly in her elementary form without any of those extra decks and houses which were still to come, and which to-day give such distinct personality to the steamship. It will be seen that she is just a flush-decked vessel, with a central protection amidships for her engines and boilers. There is no forecastle, no poop, and in the development of type she stands at the beginning. She was built for the North Sea trade, and in bad weather must have been a singularly wet boat. She was only of 677 tons gross register, and the absence of any shelter would, when steaming to windward in a bad sea, cause her to be swept from end to end. Similarly, her stern being equally unprotected by either poop or quarter deck, she would be at the mercy of a bad following sea. It was not surprising that this elementary type soon gave way to those modifications that we shall see hereafter. In design of her body this present model illustrates again Scott Russell’s system of obtaining a capacious ship combined with the qualities of slipping through the water with the minimum of resistance. This will be especially noticeable by regarding the long straight middle body. She was propelled by oscillating engines, and a two-bladed screw, having also sails on her three masts.
And so we come to that famous monstrosity and wonder of her decade the _Great Eastern_, some idea of whose appearance will be obtainable from a model of her, illustrated herewith. Here again will be found a repetition of a curious rig with the half-dozen masts, of which the second and third carried yards and square-sails, and the others the usual fore-and-aft sails set on the gaffs here seen. Although she carried one triangular headsail, yet this was a staysail, and it is significant that in this notable ship we find the disappearance of the bowsprit, a change that is so characteristic of the modern liner. Much more than either the _Great Western_ or the _Great Britain_ this epoch-making monster stands for something altogether distinctive in the evolution of the steamship. Frankly, in spite of her virtues, she was a creature born out of due time. Historically, she exhibits in no uncertain manner the extraordinary and almost incredible speed at which the development of the steamship had progressed in fifty years, during which period designers, ship-builders, and engineers had to feel their way in the most cautious manner. No ship was built with such a length as hers until the White Star _Oceanic_ in 1899; no vessel ever had such a beam until the coming of the _Mauretania_ and _Lusitania_, and even they only exceed the _Great Eastern’s_ extreme width by a mere five feet. But it is half a century since the latter was built, when all the experience that we possess now was not yet obtained.
[Illustration: THE “GREAT EASTERN” (1858).
_From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
Originally she had been named the _Leviathan_, and her beginning happened as follows: Already the fact had come to be appreciated that there was a superior advantage in a large steamer compared with a ship of smaller size when voyages of considerable distances were contemplated, and that, as already pointed out on a previous page, length of hull, other things being equal, makes for speed. In designing the _Great Eastern_ with an extreme length of 692 feet she spanned over so large a number of wave-lengths that the possibility of pitching was very decidedly reduced. But even in smooth water length still means speed, and to take the case of a rowing “eight” and compare it with a single “sculler,” we find that this law is well exemplified. Without pursuing so interesting a point beyond our limitations of subject, we might remark that quite recently an expert took the trouble to work out data obtained from the performances respectively of a Leander “eight” and a “sculler” as observed at a Henley Regatta. Although the displacement of the eight-oared craft works out at about 240 pounds per rowing man, or including the coxswain at about 217 pounds, whilst the sculler only displaces 208 lb., yet for all that the speed of the longer boat was found to be greater in the proportion as 9.75 knots are to 8.12 knots, and this, bear in mind, while the eight is carrying a ninth man who contributes nothing to the speed of the craft. We mention this as a simple example of that important fact of the superiority of length in ship-making, an importance that is now exhibited so clearly in the enormous lengths of the latest liners.
Brunel, who had already broken steamship records by his previous daring essays, suggested to the Eastern Navigation Company the building of such a ship as would be able to carry an unheard-of number of passengers, a very large amount of cargo, and at the same time be capable of steaming all the way to Australia without having to coal on the voyage. These virtues, together with her speed of fifteen knots, would, it was thought, enable her to attract such a large amount of business that she would handsomely repay her owners. The contract was eventually given to Scott Russell’s firm, who were entrusted with the building of the ship, together with the paddle-wheel engines. The screw engines were made by Messrs. James Watt and Co., so that three of the names most prominently connected with the history of the steamship were especially associated with the construction of this leviathan. Brunel was assisted in the designing by Scott Russell, and the latter’s wave-line principle was followed. The building of the ship began on the 1st of May, 1854, and on the last day of January, 1858, she was sent into the water at Millwall. But this was not done without some difficulty. The first attempt to launch this enormous mass of 12,000 tons was unsuccessful. Her weight was resting on a couple of gigantic cradles which were to slide down an incline to the water; but they only moved a few feet and then stopped. Finally, three months after the first effort, she was slowly persuaded into the water, side-ways, by hydraulic machinery. Instead of running her on the route for which she had been built, where her exceptional abilities might have been utilised, she was put to compete with the steamships already running on the Atlantic, for which short voyage she was not specially suitable, and financially she spelt ruin all round. First, the attempts to launch her, and the ensuing delay cost £120,000 and the company, unable to bear the expense, was wound up. Then the new company which bought her for £160,000 were ill-advised to employ her in the American trade, for neither as a passenger ship nor as a cargo carrier could she be made to pay her way. Subsequently she was used in laying the Atlantic cable, and was handed over to the ship-breakers in 1888, who brought her career to an end during the next couple of years.
[Illustration: PADDLE ENGINES OF THE “GREAT EASTERN.”
_From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
[Illustration: SCREW ENGINES OF THE “GREAT EASTERN.”
_From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum._]
The _Great Eastern_ was, in accordance with Brunel’s idea, propelled by both paddle-wheels and a screw. An illustration is here given of a model of her paddle-engines, which were of the oscillating type. It will be borne in mind that the leading advantages of this type lay in the fact of their comparative lightness in weight, and their economy as regards space. If the reader will just glance at the illustration which faces page 138 of the _Great Eastern’s_ longitudinal section, he will be able to see what little room these engines actually needed. It will be noticed in her paddle-engines that each of two cylinders drove a crank, the cylinders being placed vertically but at an inclined angle. Each paddle-wheel could, if desired, be driven separately. The condensers were of the jet type, and there were two air-pumps, which were driven by a single crank in the middle of the paddle shaft. The paddle-wheels were tremendous, weighing ninety tons each, and measuring fifty-six feet in diameter. But the _Great Eastern_ amply proved how unsuitable the paddle-wheel was for ocean work. Every time the big monster rolled in a bad sea a great strain was put on the machinery; these vast projections, too, offered not merely increased windage and accentuated the ship’s general unwieldiness, but afforded a fine target for the Atlantic waves to smash against. Once the _Great Eastern_, during a gale in the year 1861, suffered pretty badly in this respect, when the paddle-wheels were destroyed. She was afterwards fitted with wheels five feet smaller in diameter, and of greater strength.
In the next illustration will be seen a model of her screw engines, whose position in the ship will be found on referring again to the longitudinal section. These were, it will be noticed, no longer of that early type which needed gearing, but worked directly, the cylinders being placed horizontally. The number of cylinders was four, each of which had two piston-rods, and steam was supplied by half a dozen double-ended tubular boilers of the rectangular or “box” type. For the benefit of the non-technical reader we may explain that the object seen in the foreground of the picture, extending from the centre to the right-hand side, is what is commonly called the “link motion gear,” which is employed for reversing the engines when it is required to send the ship astern. This controls the slide valves which allow the steam to enter the cylinders. The principle of the link motion is just this: two eccentrics are placed side by side on the shaft, but opposite to each other. Each of them is connected by a rod to one end of the “link,” which is curved in shape. In this illustration it will be easily recognised at the right-hand side in the front. Now, as the link is moved up or down, so it controls the eccentric. If it is lowered, for instance, then one eccentric only is working the valve, but if the link is raised the other eccentric will control the valve, and so the latter will work in the opposite direction to which it did before. Thus, by using one eccentric, steam enters the cylinder at one end first, while if the other eccentric is employed steam will enter first at the other. Thus it becomes possible to make the engine turn in whichever direction is desired by regulating the end of the cylinder by which the steam shall first enter.
The _Great Eastern’s_ propeller had four blades, and an interesting arrangement was adopted so that when the ship was proceeding by means of her paddles, sails, or both, the screw propeller was kept revolving by means of two auxiliary engines in order that the speed of the ship through the water might not be diminished by the drag of the screw. Actual results showed that this ship could do her fifteen knots with screw and paddles, but her average speed was one knot less. Under screw alone she could do nine; under paddle power alone she did seven and a quarter. It will thus be noticed that when using both paddles and screw she ought to have done better, and this failing is explained by asserting that the paddle-wheels and the screw caused a resistance too great for their respective engines.
The construction of this ship calls for more space than we can here devote thereto, but some of the important features may be enumerated. She was of great strength longitudinally, and from the keel to the water-line her hull was double. The longitudinal bulkheads extended to the topmost deck, and materially added to her strength, while the inner skin just mentioned not merely gave added strength, but was an extension of the double-bottom idea, and so increased her chances in case of collision. Furthermore, the space between the two skins was available for water ballast, so as to preserve the trim of the ship as she neared the end of her voyage, and her coal bunkers were becoming lightened. Transversely, also, the ship was divided by iron bulkheads into water-tight compartments in addition to the longitudinal ones. The iron plates out of which the ship’s skin was made varied from a half to three-quarters of an inch thick. The _Great Eastern_ was able to give the world a very convincing proof of the utility of the double bottom, for she had the bad luck to run on a rock, and although more than a hundred feet of her outer hull was afterwards found to be damaged, yet she was able to complete her voyage without the water getting through into her hull proper.
For steering so large a vessel as the _Great Eastern_ the usual type of steering-wheel would clearly have entailed the expenditure of very considerable physical effort; so, for the first time, was introduced in this ship a steam steering gear, an example that is nowadays followed by almost all steamers of any size, including even excursion boats. This arrangement necessitates the use of a miniature steam engine, the two cylinders working cranks, and the shaft causing the drum containing the steering chain to revolve. Any movement of the steering wheel admits steam, and as soon as the steersman ceases to turn his wheel so quickly does the little engine cease to work.
We have no desire to try the patience of the reader by presenting a mass of statistics, but those who delight in comparisons may be interested to learn how the _Great Eastern_ would appear if put alongside the _Mauretania_. The latter displaces 40,000 tons, the _Great Eastern_ displaced 32,000. The big Cunarder is 790 feet long, between perpendiculars, while the _Great Eastern_ was 680 feet. The latter possessed a combined horse-power--paddle and screw engines--of 11,600, while the Cunarder has 70,000. And so we could continue. But now that we have seen to what unheard-of limits the steamship had shown herself capable of reaching by the end of the sixth decade in the nineteenth century--how she had, step by step, grown from moderation to exaggeration--let us now examine her progress during the next twenty years, in which she passed through her transition period.
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