THE STEAM MARINE.
ALTHOUGH our land forces may not be in a perfect condition, our coasts, it is said, are sufficiently defended, because our naval force is great, and it may at any day procure an important reinforce- ment in the shape of the many fine steamers that ply at our shores. Let us examine this. We have no doubt that the steamers are the finest of their kind, with excellent seamen and skilled commanders; but still some doubt of their perfect condition is suggested by re- cent occurrences. The Amazon is the eighth of the ships belong- ing to one company that have been destroyed within ten years ; and when we look into the nature of this the last disaster of the series, the facts are pregnant with mistrust.
the Amazon, a splendid ship, was out on its first voyage ; and sAliald have been perfect in all its parts, equipments, and disci- Had it been so, the fire which destroyed it could not have proved fatal, even if it had occurred. Tho fire of heaven, the waters of the deep, the wild winds, are powers against which hu- man courage and art contend sometimes in vain ; but man-kin- dled fires ought to be kept within the control of man. Tho tragical disaster has been conjecturally and severally ascribed to two causes. One is an overheated state of the engine-bearings ; though it is also reported, on probable testimony, that the heat had been subdued, and the engine was in proper condition a short time before the fire burst out. Another cause is supposed to be the storing of some grease or tallow too near the engine ; and if it is true that there had been improper stowage of that kind, the overheating of the engine may have been the ultimate though•not the direct cause of the conflagration. In any case, there must have been serious negligenoe ; and it is but too probable that the evil was precipitated by the haste with which the ship was sent to sea and pushed on its first voyage in rough heavy weather. It may be usual to urge ships on a first voyage before they have been fairly tried in the working ; but if so, we only learn how reckless is the management of new steamers in that respect. And if commercial appetite—if the desire to get machinery to work betimes and to make quick passages—can make men incur such terrible hazards, how are we to suppose that the same spirit does not dictate the management of steamers in other respects ? that we shall not find their machinery defective when old, as it is un- seasoned when new ; that we shall not find their appointments in- sufficient, and their management untrustworthy ?
Defective appointments are alleged against this same ship, beau- tiful as it was to look at and elaborately constructed. The boats, it is averred, were so hung as to impede the launching of them. It is represented that the captain wished the peculiar kind of hanging ; but, " confusion " apart, the method seems to have caused much hinderance. They were sufficient in number and ca- pacity to have saved all on board; but they were inaccessible, or swamped in the hurried effort to get them out; and the result might have been spared, at least with such of them as were not made inac- cessible by the flames, if the hanging had not obstructed the process.
Again, the ship was destroyed by fire, and the means of check against fire appear to have been ludicrously ineffective. Had any steps been taken to render the wood incombustible, or capable of resisting combustion for a time? On the contrary, the " well- seasoned " wood appears to have burned like the best firewood. Sir William Burnet calls to mind that his plan of using chloride of zinc would probably have prevented the ignition. Again, there are methods of extinguishing fires. The owners of the Ama- zon had actually procured estimates, on a plan for which Mr. Wil- liam Riddle obtained an Exposition prize-medal, to extinguish fire with steam from the boiler ; and they found that for so large a vessel (2250 tons burden) the cost would have been 2001. ; on which they declined that additional expense, as steam-vessels are very seldom burnt ! There is also another apparatus, called " Phil- lips's fire annihilator," the effects of which aro well attested, and which might have checked the flames in a few seconds. But even the ordinary means were evidently feeble and unready ; so that the responsible officers were braving the terrible hazird without even the ordinary, means of meeting the consequences. But, we repeat, if there is this carelessness in the arrangements of the ship, in the working, and in the precautions against fire' are we to sup- pose that there is not carelessness in other respects?
Nor is the reckless conduct of steamers restricted to commercial managers. A battalion of Rifles is despatched to the Cape of Good Hope—not before it is wanted ; the only regret is that the number is not greater and the despatch of them earlier : but " better late than never," and we are just congratulating ourselves on their de- parture, when we learn that the Megiera steamer, which conveys them, has put into Plymouth, " disabled"! The weather had been rough, but scarcely such as to account for the immediate disabling of a ship which was selected to convey seven hundred picked sol- diers to the Cape of Good Hope. There may be 'one excuse : the vessel was so laden with ordnance stores, says the Reverend Wil- liam Buller, Rector of Holy Trinity, Dorchester, that the soldiers could not stow themselves away.; the decks were crowded, and the passage from one part of the ship to the other was obstructed. The ship, in short, was carrying too much, and that was ill packed,—such is the excuse for the indifferent behaviour of the steamer itself as a sea-boat. The service on which it was going was of the most im- portant kind, and we are to suppose that those who sent it did their best both in selecting the boat and in loading it : if so, the inference is not agreeable. On the other hand, if the selection of a bad boat and the overloading of it were acts of carelessness, then the inference is still worse,—except, indeed, that officials can be changed more promptly than a whole fleet of ships. In either case, these pluenomena are not of a kind to increase the public reliance on our steamers as a coast guard.
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