OCEAN STEAMSHIPS.*
MORE than seventy years have passed since the 'Savannah,' a paddle-wheel steamship of 380 tons, crossed the Atlantic Ocean in twenty-five days. Her fuel was pitch-pine, and Ocean Steamships a Popular Accoutt of thtir Construction, Thmelopment. Management. and Appliances. By Various Writers. With 116 Illustratious. London ; John MUITay.
she used steam eighteen out of the twenty-five days, and her paddles were so arranged that they could be quickly hoisted on board. The 'Savannah' having done her part in the march of progress, resumed her original character as a sailing-packet, and was wrecked off Long Island. A degrada- tion, perhaps, this ; but a more honourable and honoured old age than that of the Great Eastern' some three-quarters of a century later, which, after becoming a floating advertisement hoarding, has finally been broken up.
The voyage of the Savannah,' however, only rendered possible the solution of the problem,—Could a vessel cross a stormy ocean dependent on steam alone ? Steamships, be it remembered, were yet young,—the first ever launched, indeed, was but thirty years old. Brunel thought size to be the easiest way to solve the difficulty, by providing sufficient coal capacity. The Great Western,' built from his designs, was launched in 1837, and made in 1838 the passage from Bristol to New York in fifteen days. This, the first con- tinuous steam passage, was also a race ; for the with a four days' start, just managed to reach New York two hours before, having burnt all her fuel, her spare spars, and forty-three barrels of resin, whereas the Great Western' had burnt but three-quarters of her 800 tons. Brunel's steamship was a monster then,-236 ft. long, with a tonnage of 2,300 and a horse-power of 750. The City of New York,' built fifty years later, is 560 ft. in length, has a tonnage of 13,000, and a horse-power of 18,000. Nor is this all. The improvement in marine engines, going under the description of compound and triple-expansion, is such that the 'City of New York,' on her fastest voyage, only burns 328 tons a day, or 1.900 on the trip. That is to say, the expenditure of coal per horse-power per hour was 6 lb. in the thirties ; whereas the City of New York,' in her fast passage of October, 1890, burnt about 1-75 lb. of coal per hour for every horse-power. The saving effected by triple-expansion engines over the comparatively modern com- pound engines since 1881 has alone effected a large economy in fuel ; we may give an illustration quoted in the first chapter. Let us suppose two steamships of 4,500 tons and 6,000 horse- power, whose rate of speed is twelve knots an hour. One has compound engines and boilers working at a pressure of 90 lb. to the square inch, the other triple expansion-engines using a pressure of 145 lb. to the inch ; in a voyage of eighty-four days, the older type of engine will have burnt 1,200 tons of coal more than the younger. The saving is generally reckoned to be from 20 to 25 per cent. Between 1869 and 1872 the introduction of compound engines reduced the coal consumption by one-half ; in 1881, by using increased pres- sure, a further saving of 13 per cent, had been made ; and five years later the last great stride in economy was made. To employ the term "revolution," then, to the change effected by this ingenious contrivance for the economy of fuel, of space, and of time, is not to exaggerate its importance. One comprehends what a " revolution " in the effectiveness of machines means, for it is obvious that, however fine an older type of steamship may be, mechanical advan- tage must tell, and the great saving in fuel, and therefore space, soon wipe out the first cost of more complicated machinery. Let us go back to the Great Western.' Her first passage out took fifteen days ; her longest eastward, fifteen; and shortest eastward, twelve days and seven-and-a- half hours. After making sixty-four voyages across the Atlantic, she became the property of the West India Steam- Packet Company, and in 1857, about the time Brunel's greatest ship was launched, was broken up at Vauxhall; "and her final province," says Commander Chadwick, "no doubt was to feed the drawing-room fires of the West End of London, a fate to which many a worn-out wayfarer of the seas is yearly devoted." The lumps of tough-looking teak that burn so well have therefore a history of their own.
Branel meanwhile bad built a vessel which was a great stride towards the ocean " greyhounds " of to-day. The 'Great Britain,' launched in 1843, was an iron steamship with a screw propeller ; whereas her predecessor was a wooden paddle-wheel steamship. This second venture would have had paddle-wheels had not Brunel, struck by the performance of the screw in the Archimedes,' persuaded his employers to alter the design and substitute for the side-wheel machinery the screw•propeller shaft. The 'Great Britain' had a tonnage of 2,984, and her best speed was about twelve knots an hour. She made a few voyages across the Atlantic, and then overran her reckoning to such an extent in an outward
voyage, that while she was believed to be rounding the Isle of Man she grounded in Dundrum Bay on the Irish coast ! Eleven months afterwards, in 1847, she was got off and sold (her owners having been ruined), and once more repaired, for she was but little injured. From 1851 she continued her career, this time between Liverpool and Australia, till after 1870, when it appears she became a sailing-vessel, and once more, in 1886, stranded in the Falkland Islands. Floated again, but badly injured, she became a hulk," and there will be passed the last days of what may be regarded as one of the famous ships of the world." A chequered career truly, and one that Brunel's steamships seemed fated to follow. Of the three great steam- ships created by the mind of Isambard Brunel, the Great Britain,' true to her name, was the only one, it must be con- fessed, to advance the problem of oceanic voyages to any practical degree. The Great Eastern' was a development more in size than in practical progress, though indeed, as were her predecessors, she was a marvel of construction, and showed what British mechanical genius and British shipyards could do.
The years 1837-40 saw the founding of some celebrated steamshipcompanies, the Cunard, the Peninsular and Oriental, and the Pacific Steam Navigation. The Cunard Company accepted from the beginning the contract for the mails, the first break occurring when the Umbria ' in 1886 left for America without them. The first four vessels of the company were wooden paddle-wheel steamers, with the old type of engines, and the first to sail, the Britannia,' started on a Friday.
We must not suppose that the days of the clippers are over. -Up to the sixties, there was little to choose between them and steamships, and in many a fair race the fast sailers held the palm of victory. Twenty days was considered a good passage, but the more famous clippers performed some remarkable feats. The Red Jacket,' in 1854, sailed from Sandy Hook to Liverpool in 13 days, 1 hour, and 25 minutes, logging 3,017 miles ; another clipper ran from Baltimore to Liverpool, 3,400 miles, in 13 days and 7 hours, while the
Dreadnought,' in 1860, sighted the Irish coast 9 days and 17 hours after leaving New York, though it took her 3 days to make Liverpool. Again, in 1864, the 'Adelaide' was passed in New York Bay by the Cunard steamship Sidon,' but she made the Mersey before the Sidon,' doing the voyage in 12 days and 8 hours. The clipper is still indispensable for long ocean-voyages, and quite lately steel sailing-ships have been built, and the eye often rests with pleasure on the magnificent spread of canvas of a four-master on a sunny day.
Twenty years ago the wildest dreamer did not conceive the possibility of a City of New York' crossing the Atlantic at the rate of twenty-one miles an hour, yet this was only the average rate made by that steamship in the year 1890. The 'Teutonic' is credited with having made both the fastest westward and the fastest eastward passage ; and the figures can be quoted here, as they are not likely to be remembered, and will stand for a time. They are,—for the westward passage, five days, sixteen hours, and thirty minutes; and for eastward passage, five days, twenty-one hours, and twenty- two minutes. Both these great steamships have twin-screws, though it must not be inferred that their superior attainments depend on this development. The power of the vessel, how. ever, is greater, and so is the security, for the engines can be separated by a longitudinal bulkhead, so that, unless both engines break down simultaneously, the vessel can still be driven with one propeller disabled ; and should the steering gear break-down, the advantage of two screws is once more obvious.
As the fast sailer has not been ousted from her province of long sea-voyages, so has the victory of the screw over the paddle-wheel not been so complete as most of us think. The screw requires a certain depth, and it neither starts nor stops a vessel so quickly as the side-wheel. A vessel of the proper fineness of form, propelled by a screw, can, however, be driven through the great ocean-waves at a more continuous and even speed than the paddle-wheel steamship with its weather-wheel now buried in a heavy cross-sea, and now buffeting the air. The screw, though it is sometimes out of water, is not subject to the interference caused by the water thrown off from the bows, which leaves a trough along the sides. The grip of the paddles becomes less, too, as so much of the ballast is burnt every day. Whether a long screw.
steamship rolls more than a paddle-wheel steamship, is still being debated ; at any rate, the roll is sharper.
The accommodation and the living aboard the great steamships of to-day, are so royal that one reads with some unbelief the casual answer of an old traveller, that he "didn't find much difference." The fact is, the "life on the ocean wave" was far pleasanter thirty years ago to any one possessing a grain of self-respect. Nowadays there is no repose for the traveller, he is but an atom in a vast crowd, and by the time he has begun to distinguish persons, the shores of a new Continent are in sight, and another change in the kaleidoscope takes place. All this hurry and bustle undoubtedly tends towards safety ; what with the speed and the shortness of the passage, and water-tight compartments and twin-screws, the passenger hardly allows to himself the possibility of his being the doomed chance. A meeting of steamship captains, we are told, was almost unanimously in favour of higher speeds ; vessels are more easily handled, the voyage is shorter, collisions are easier to avoid, and, if there must be a collision, well, the harder you go, the better for you. This argument, in the case of fog and icebergs, cuts both ways, for though it may seem best to traverse the dangerous area quickly—a belief, by the way, most congenial to dashing masters—the harder one hits an iceberg the worse it is for one. At Professor Maury's suggestion, the fog and iceberg areas are mapped out, and their indications have been of great use, though the area and latitude of the icebergs are continually shifting. A modern element in the safety of steamships is the water-tight compartment. A collision-bulkhead protects the ship should her bows have been stove in, and transverse bulkheads rise from the keel to the saloon deck, 18 ft. above the water-line, without any opening whatsoever. Doorways used to exist in them, but in collisions they were forgotten in the panic, or the pressure of air or water prevented their proper action.
After all, for what reason and for whom is this hurry and scurry made ? For people who waste most of their time and are seized with a violent desire to escape the ennui of a voyage: Americans, of course, are the great patrons of these floating palaces, Europe being the " loadstone " that draws them. Great Britain has the unrivalled monopoly of the traffic; indeed, in 1890 she put afloat over 80 per cent. of the steam tonnage of the world. The universal demand for steel has much to do with this ; ten years ago but 10 per cent, of steamships were made of steel, now but 4 per cent. are made of iron. British supremacy in speed was only lowered in the fifties, when the disastrous Collins line beat the Cunard for fast passages and accommodation.
The best-written chapter in this composite volume is Lieutenant Kelly's "The Ship's Company," an interesting, racy, and observant sketch of the hard life of the crew. The illustrations, though not always connected with the text, are good, particularly those relating to the ship-yards.
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