TUE GREAT EASTERN, AND OCEAN DWELLING.
I Adam Street, Adelphi, 17th .Tune 1857.
Srn—It in rumoured that the Great Eastern is approaching the time of launching, and that her first voyage is to be to Portland, in connexion with the settlement of emigrants along the course of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada. Assuming her to be launched rightly, and to have passed through all her baby disorders, there are several very important questions to settle ere the question of her success as a money speculation can be decided on. Find, there is the problem to solve, whether her length and bulk are such as under nearly all circumstances to keep her steady in the water, practically rendering large waves no more than ripples as they break against her sides ; and next, whether the vibrations of her machinery are so absorbed as not to interfere with the digestive functions of the passengers— whether, in short, sea-sickness, the greatest of all impediments to her transit, will be abolished on board her. Even the question of increased speed is second to this. If rightly constructed, the safety of the craft against ordinary dangers ought to be absolute ; she ought not to be capable of sinking or burning, and should laugh a lee-shore to scorn. She may by carelessness run another craft down, but nothing that floats should be capable of damaging her by collision ; and she can produce her own gas or electric light, lighting up corollas of flame at her funnel-heads, giving warning of her presence at five miles' distance, and a giant trumpet might be blown in time of fog, to be heard a mile off.
These two circumstances, freedom from sea-sickness and freedom from danger, will insure the preference by passengers who would probably arrange their journey to suit her time' unless vessels with equal pretensions come forth. But her complement of passengers is estimated at ten thousand—the total army of Xenophon. This is no large number if we consider our daily railroad trains, and there is no reason why passengers should not be as numerous by sea as by land, provided the convenience be equal. If it were a sailing-craft of the same description, it is probable that the lodgings afloat for 10,000 people would be constructed as cheaply as equally good lodgings ashore ; for there are neither sewers-rates nor paving-rates, and if moreover a property-tax be in question, the ownership might be transferred to the United States. It is steam-power for transport that is a main element in calculation, and that, whether by land or water, is costly. By land it is the cheapest of all traction. By water it is the question of so many days' extra rations of provisions against so many days' coal.
But time is also an element, and even labouring men would probably rather pay for steam to shorten the voyage and the number of unworldng days. In all else the vessel should be regarded as a great hotel and boarding-house, the economy of which in provisioning ought to increase with the number of passengers. In such a vessel the ordinary appliances of salted provisions and preserved provisions might very well be dispensed with. Animal food of all kinds might be kept fresh for the length of any voyage by the simple process of drawing air by means of the steam-engines through well-contrived store-tanks of metal, and without the mischievous effect induced by preserving in ice,—a process which every one understands who has tasted frosted potatoes.
Provisioning, then, in such vessels ought to be quits as cheap and as wholesome as on land and emigration would largely increase when its difficulties were removed. 'Emigration would cease to be what it has been—a permanent expatriation; and that equalization of labour, at present imperfectly accomplished in Great Britain by means of railways, would come to be accomplished all over the healthy' world by means of giant ocean steamers; workmen would go to the United States or Canada, or to Australia, for a year or a few years, and return at their pleasure to their more congenial natal soil. And Great Britain would be the gainer by this, for the intelligent and industrious, desirous of vigorous health, would come to her from all countries, as they ever have done. There is yet more. Large numbers of people are in the habit of visiting the sea-aide during the hot weather. These people would rather be on the sea than on the sea-shore if only they could be insured against sea-sickness. The Great Eastern, as a floating hotel, would be cheapest of All possible hotels; and for the purposeof lying about the Channel, or visiting the shores of Spain, Portugal, and their islands, would only require eteam-power sufficient to move her, say five miles an hour, when the wind proved unfavourable.
To freight tire Great Eastern fully with passengers' say twice per month, would require a quarter of a million per annum ; but probably half that number would come back again. We know nothing about numbers' and shall not know till the experiment be tried. Say that a vessel ma half re million : 20 per cent for interest and renewal would be 100,0001. per annum. Take the passengers at 10s. per day per head, or bl, per trip, and the vessel only one-fourth full, say 100,000, that would give half a million of revenue. One-half full at V. 10s. per trip would produce the same. At present the only pleasure-travelling by sea is in gentlemen's yachts, a costly luxury. When people shall be enabled to go to sea with as much comfort as they live in on shore, and at as cheap a rate, a new rem of travelling will be opened up, and marine hospitals for the sick and delicate may become as common as hospitals on shore. The sea-sickness problem once favourably solved, all this will follow; and the Great Eastern will be but the precursor of probably still larger vessels—for, other things being equal, size is speed, safety, comfort, and cheapness. I am yours faithfully, W. Bamozs ADAMS.
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