Читать книгу Ocean Steamships - J. D. Jerrold Kelley - Страница 4
Оглавление| Under | 120 | horse-power, | 101⁄2 | lbs. | per horse-power. |
| 160 | „ | 91⁄2 | „ | „ | |
| 200 | „ | 81⁄2 | „ | „ | |
| 240 | „ | 8 | „ | „ |
Or more than four times what is consumed to-day in moderately economical ships. In other words, to steam at her present rate across the Atlantic the City of New York, of 18,000 horse-power, would need to start with something like 7,500 tons of coal on board were her consumption per indicated horse-power equal to that of the best sea practice of that date, which could hardly have been under 6 pounds per indicated horse-power per hour.
This may be said to have been the status of affairs when, in 1836, under the influence of Brunei’s bold genius, the Great Western Steamship Company was founded as an off-shoot of the Great Western Railway, whose terminus was then Bristol. Brunel wished to know why the line should not extend itself to New York, and the result of his suggestion was the formation of the steamship company and the laying down at Bristol of their first ship, the Great Western.
Brunel’s large ideas were shown in this ship, though in comparatively a less degree, as well as in his later ones. She was of unprecedented size, determined on by Brunel as being necessary for the requisite power and coal-carrying capacity. The following were her principal dimensions: Length over all, 236 ft.; length between perpendiculars, 212 ft.; length of keel, 205 ft.; breadth, 35 ft. 4 in.; depth of hold, 23 ft. 2 in.; draught of water, 16 ft. 8 in.; length of engine-room, 72 ft.; tonnage by measurement, 1,340 tons; displacement at load-draught, 2,300 tons.
The Great Western, from an old painting.
Larger image (136 kB)
Dimensions of engines: Diameter of cylinders, 731⁄2 in.; length of stroke, 7 ft.; weight of engines, wheels, etc., 310 tons; number of boilers, 4; weight of boilers, 90 tons; weight of water in boilers, 80 tons; diameter of wheel, 28 ft. 9 in.; width of floats, 10 ft.
Her engines (side-lever) were built by the great firm of Maudslay & Field, who had been for some time one of the most notable marine-engine building firms of the period in Great Britain. They had, up to 1836, built 66 engines for steamers; the first being in 1815, when they built those of the Richmond, of 17 horse-power. The indicated power of the Great Western was 750; and a notable measure of the stride which steam has taken in the half-century since they undertook this contract is that they have since constructed twin-screw engines from which they have guaranteed to produce 19,500 horse-power. These drive a great armor-clad, which has six times the displacement of the Great Western and twice her ordinary speed.
The Great Western was launched on July 19, 1837, and was towed from Bristol to the Thames to receive her machinery, where she was the wonder of London. She left for Bristol on March 31, 1838; and arrived, after having had a serious fire on board, on April 2d.
In the meantime others had been struck with the possibility of steaming to New York; and a company, of which the moving spirit was Mr. J. Laird, of Birkenhead, purchased the Sirius, of 700 tons, employed between London and Cork, and prepared her for a voyage to New York. The completion of the Great Western was consequently hastened; and she left Bristol on Sunday, April 8, 1838, at 10 A.M. with 7 passengers on board, and reached New York on Monday, the 23d, the afternoon of the same day with the Sirius, which had left Cork Harbor (where she had touched en route from London) four days before the Great Western had left Bristol. The latter still had nearly 200 tons of coal, of the total of 800, on board on arrival; the Sirius had consumed her whole supply, and was barely able to make harbor.
Cross-section of the Great Western.
It is needless to speak of the reception of these two ships at New York. It was an event which stirred the whole country, and with reason; it had practically, at one stroke, reduced the breadth of the Atlantic by half, and brought the Old and New World by so much the nearer together. The Great Western started on her return voyage, May 7th, with 66 passengers. This was made in 14 days, though one was lost by a stoppage at sea. Her average daily run out was 202 miles, or about 81⁄2 knots per hour; in returning she made an average of close upon 9. Her coal consumption to New York was 655 tons, though in returning it was 392 tons—due no doubt to the aid from the westerly winds which generally prevail in the North Atlantic in the higher latitudes. She made in all, between 1838 and 1843, 64 voyages across the Atlantic, her average time from Bristol or Liverpool to New York, with an average distance of 3,0621⁄2 knots, being 15 days 12 hours, and from New York eastward, over an average distance of 3,105 knots, 13 days 6 hours. Her fastest westward passage was in 12 days 18 hours; her longest in 22 days 6 hours. Her fastest eastward was in 12 days 71⁄2 hours; and longest, in 15 days. The largest number of passengers carried was 152, and she averaged throughout 85. In 1847 she was sold to the West India Steam Packet Company, and in 1857, about the time that Mr. Brunel was launching his last and greatest ship, she was broken up at Vauxhall; and her final province 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 Great Britain.
Larger image (142 kB)
Steam communication between England and America had thus been demonstrated as possible beyond a doubt, and others were not slow to make the venture. The Great Western Company themselves determined to lay down a second ship; and it having been quickly seen that the mails must be henceforth carried by steam, a gentleman from Halifax, Nova Scotia, appeared upon the scene, who was destined to connect his name indelibly with the history of steam upon the Atlantic. This was Mr. Samuel Cunard, who had nursed the idea of such a steam line for some years, and who now, with Mr. George Burns, of Glasgow, and Mr. David McIver, of Liverpool, founded the great company known by Mr. Cunard’s name. The establishment of this line and the building of the Great Britain by the Great Western Company are two most notable events in steam navigation the one putting the steam traffic between the two countries on a firm and secure basis; the other marking a notable step in the revolution in construction and means of applying the propelling power, destined before many years to be completely accepted to the exclusion of the wooden hull and the paddle-wheel. It is not fair to speak of the use of iron in the Great Britain for the hull, in a general way, as the beginning of the change; she was only the first large ship to be built of this material. The credit of the introduction of iron is largely to be awarded to Mr. John Laird, of Birkenhead, who in 1829 built a lighter 60 feet long, 13 feet 4 inches in breadth, and 6 feet depth of hold; and in 1833, a paddle-wheel steamer, the Lady Lansdowne, of 148 tons, 133 feet long, 17 feet broad and 9 feet 6 inches deep. “In the following year Mr. Laird constructed a second paddle-steamer, for G. B. Lamar, Esq., of Savannah, United States, called the John Randolph. This was the first iron vessel ever seen in American waters. She was shipped in pieces at Liverpool, and riveted together in the Savannah River, where for several years afterward she was used as a tug-boat.” Though Mr. Laird was the ablest upholder of iron as a material for ship-building, and was the largest builder in it, the idea existed before him—Richard Trevithick and Robert Stevenson so early as 1809 proposing iron vessels, “and even suggested ‘masts, yards, and spars to be constructed in plates, with telescope-joints or screwed together; and in 1815 Mr. Dickenson patented an invention for vessels, or rather boats, to be built of iron, with a hollow water-tight gunwale” (Lindsay, vol. iv., p. 85). But nothing came of these proposals, and the first iron vessel mentioned was built in 1818 by Thomas Wilson, near Glasgow—the first steam vessel being the Aaron Manby, “constructed in 1821 at Horsley” (Lindsay). “Up to 1834, Mr. Laird had constructed six iron vessels altogether;” the largest of these was the Garryowen, of 300 tons, for the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company. Others of considerable size by the same builder followed, and the material began to come into use elsewhere. In 1837 the Rainbow, of 600 tons, by far the largest iron steamer which had yet been built, was laid down at Birkenhead. It will thus be seen how bold was the step taken by Mr. Brunel when, in 1838, he advised the Great Western Company to use iron as the material for their new ship, which was to be of the startling size of 3,443 tons displacement. Nor were his innovations to stop with size and material. On his earnest recommendation to the company it was decided, in 1839, to change from the first design of the usual paddle-wheels to a screw.
Ericsson’s First Arrangement of Underwater Propeller (Oct. 10, 1834).
Ericsson’s Propeller (July 13, 1836).
Smith’s Amended Specification
(May 18, 1839).
Smith’s Specification (May 31, 1836).
Cammerow’s Specification (Dec. 10, 1828).
Specifications of Early Patents taken out in England.
Three years before (in 1836), a Swede, whose name was destined to become much more famous in our own land, had successfully shown the practicability of screw propulsion, in the Francis B. Ogden, on the Thames. “She was 45 feet long and 8 feet wide, drawing 2 feet 3 inches of water. In this vessel he fitted his engine and two propellers, each of 5 feet 3 inches diameter” (Lindsay). She made ten miles an hour, and showed her capabilities by towing a large packetship at good speed. There was no question of the success of this little vessel, which was witnessed on one occasion by several of the lords of the admiralty. Notwithstanding her unqualified success, Ericsson had no support in England. It happened, however, that Commodore Stockton, of our navy, was then in London; and witnessing a trial of the Ogden, ordered two small boats of him. One, the Robert F. Stockton, was built, in 1838, of iron, by Laird—63 feet 5 inches in length, 10 feet in breadth, and 7 feet in depth. She was taken—April, 1839—under sail, to the United States by a crew of a master and four men. This little vessel was the forerunner of the famous Princeton, built after the designs of Ericsson, who had been induced by Commodore Stockton to come to America as offering a more kindly field for his talents.
In the same year with Ericsson’s trial of the Ogden, Mr. Thomas Pettit Smith took out a patent for a screw; and it was by the company formed by Smith that the screw propeller was first tried on a large scale, in the Archimedes, of 237 tons, in 1839. Of course the names mentioned by no means exhaust the list of claimants to this great invention. Nor can it be said to have been invented by either of these two, but they were the first to score decisive successes and convince the world of its practicability.
In 1770, Watt wrote to Dr. Smalls (who, a Scot, was at one time a professor at William and Mary College, in Virginia, but returned to England in 1785) regarding the latter’s experiments in relation to canal navigation, asking him, “Have you ever considered a spiral oar for that purpose, or are you for two wheels?” In the letter is the sketch, a fac-simile of which is here shown:
Dr. Smalls answers that, “I have tried models of spiral oars, and have found them all inferior to oars of either of the other forms” (Muirhead’s “Life of Watt,” p. 203).
Joseph Bramah, in 1785, took out a patent for propelling vessels by steam, wherein, after describing the method figured in his specification of using a wheel at the stern of a vessel, in which he places the rudder at the bow, he proceeds as follows:
“Instead of this wheel A may be introduced a wheel with inclined fans, or wings, similar to the fly of a smoke-jack, or the vertical sails of a wind-mill. This wheel, or fly, may be fixed on the spindle C alone, and may be wholly under water, when it would, by being turned round either way, cause the ship to be forced backward or forward, as the inclination of the fans, or wings, will act as oars with equal force both ways; and their power will be in proportion to the size and velocity of the wheel, allowing the fans to have a proper inclination. The steam-engine will also serve to clear the ship of water with singular expedition, which is a circumstance of much consequence.”
Bramah thus very clearly describes the screw, and in so doing must unquestionably be numbered as one of the many fathers of this system of propulsion. Fitch, as before stated, is recorded, on most trustworthy evidence, to have been another: and Mr. Stevens, of Hoboken, not only carried out successful experiments with the screw in 1804, at New York, but even experimented with twin screws. Charles Cummerow, “in the City of London, merchant,” patented, in 1828, “certain improvements in propelling vessels, communicated to me by a certain foreigner residing abroad,” in which the screw is set forth in a manner not to be questioned. Who the “certain foreigner” was, who communicated the invention to Mr. Cummerow, has not come down to us.
It had, however, like the steamboat as a whole, to wait for a certain preparedness in the human intellect. Invention knocked hard, and sometimes often, in the early years of the century, before the doors of the mind were opened to receive it; and too frequently then the reception was but a surly one, and attention deferred from visitor to visitor until one came, as did Fulton, or Ericsson, who would not be denied.
The transfer of Ericsson to America left an open field for Mr. Pettit Smith, and the experiments carried out by the Screw Propeller Company had the effect of permanently directing the attention in Great Britain of those interested in such subjects. The screw used in the Archimedes “consisted of two half-threads, of an 8 feet pitch, 5 feet 9 inches in diameter. Each was 4 feet in length, and they were placed diametrically opposite each other at an angle of about 45 degrees on the propeller-shaft” (Lindsay). She was tried in 1839, and in 1840 Mr. Brunel spent some time in investigating her performance. His mind, bold and original in all its own conceptions, was quick to appreciate the new method; and, although the engines of the Great Britain were already begun, designed for paddle-wheels, he brought the directors of the company, who had undertaken the building of their own machinery, to consent to a change. The following details of the ship are taken from the “Life of Brunel:” Total length, 322 ft.; length of keel, 289 ft.; beam, 51 ft.; depth, 32 ft. 6 in.; draught of water, 16 ft.; tonnage measurement, 3,443 tons; displacement, 2,984 tons; number of cylinders, 4; diameter of cylinder, 88 in.; length of stroke, 6 ft.; weight of engines, 340 tons; weight of boilers, 200 tons; weight of water in boilers, 200 tons; weight of screw-shaft, 38 tons; diameter of screw, 15 ft. 6 in.; pitch of screw, 25 ft.; weight of screw, 4 tons; diameter of main drum, 18 ft.; diameter of screw-shaft drum, 6 ft.; weight of coal, 1,200 tons.
“In the construction of the Great Britain, the same care which had been spent in securing longitudinal strength in the wooden hull of the Great Western was now given to the suitable distribution of the metal.”
A balanced rudder and bilge keels were parts of her original construction, and an unusual method of lapping the plates was used. “Apart from their size, the design of the engines of the Great Britain necessarily presented many peculiarities. The boilers, which were 6 in number, were placed touching each other, so as to form one large boiler about 33 feet square, divided by one transverse and two longitudinal partitions.
“It would seem that the boiler was worked with a pressure of about 8 pounds on the square inch.
“The main shaft of the engine had a crank at either end of it, and was made hollow; a stream of water being kept running through it, so as to prevent heating in the bearings. An important part in the design was the method by which motion was transmitted from the engine-shaft to the screw-shaft, for the screw was arranged to go three revolutions to each revolution of the engines. Where the engines do not drive the screw directly, this is now universally effected by means of toothed gearing; but when the engines of the Great Britain were made, it was thought that this arrangement would be too jarring and noisy. After much consideration, chains were used, working round different-sized drums, with notches in them, into which fitted projections on the chains.”
On July 10, 1843, this (for the time) great ship was floated out of dock; but it was not until January 23, 1845, that she left Bristol for London, making on her voyage an average of 121⁄3 knots an hour. She left Liverpool for New York on August 26th, and arrived on September 10th, having made the passage out in 14 days and 21 hours; she returned in 151⁄2 days. During the next winter, after one more voyage to New York, alterations were made, to give a better supply of steam, and a new screw was fitted. She made two voyages to New York in 1846; and on September 22d she left Liverpool on a third, but overran her reckoning and stranded in Dundrum Bay, on the northeast coast of Ireland, when it was supposed she was only rounding the Isle of Man. This unfortunate event completed the ruin of the company, already in financial straits through the competition of the Cunard line; and the ship after her rescue, effected August 27, 1847, almost a year after grounding, was “sold to Messrs. Gibbs, Bright & Co., of Liverpool, by whom she was repaired and fitted with auxiliary engines of 500 nominal horse-power. On a general survey being made it was found that she had not suffered any alteration of form, nor was she at all strained. She was taken out of dock in October, 1851, and since that time she has made regular voyages between Liverpool and Australia.”
These last few lines appear in the “Life of Brunel,” published in 1870. But she was later changed into a sailing-ship, and only in 1886 stranded again at the Falkland Islands. She was floated; but being badly injured, was sold to serve as a hulk, and there no doubt will be passed the last days of what may be regarded one of the famous ships of the world. She was, for the time, as bold a conception as was her great designer’s later venture, the Great Eastern.
The acceptance by the English Government of the Cunard company’s bid for the contract for carrying the mails to America resulted in putting afloat, in 1840, the Acadia, Britannia, Columbia, and Caledonia. The first vessels of the Cunard line were all wooden paddle-wheel steamers, with engines by Napier, of Glasgow, of the usual side-lever class; the return-flue boilers and jet-condensers were used, the latter holding their place for many years to come, though surface condensation had already appeared as an experiment. The company was to carry the mails fortnightly between Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston, regular sailings to be adhered to, and four vessels to be employed, for the sum of £81,000 ($400,000) per annum. The contract was made for seven years, but was continued from time to time for forty-six—no break occurring in this nearly half-century’s service, when the Umbria—November 4, 1886—was the first ship in the history of the company to leave Liverpool on the regular day of sailing for America without mails. This break, however, was but momentary, and the line almost at once resumed its ancient duty.
The Britannia was the first of the fleet to sail; and, strange to say (from the usual seaman’s point of view), Friday, July 4, 1840, was the day selected. She arrived at Boston in 14 days and 8 hours, a very successful passage for the time.
It must have required considerable moral courage in the projectors to inaugurate such an undertaking on a day of the week which has been so long on the black-list of sailor superstition, notwithstanding it had the advantage of being the anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence. The success of this line ought certainly to rehabilitate Friday to a position of equality among the more fortunate days, though it will be observed that none of the transatlantic lines have yet selected it as a day of sailing.
The Britannia, which was representative of the quartette, was of the following dimensions: Length of keel and fore rake, 207 ft.; breadth of beam, 34 ft. 2 in.; depth of hold, 22 ft. 4 in.; mean draught, 16 ft. 10 in.; displacement, 2,050 tons; diameter of cylinder, 721⁄2 in.; length of stroke, 82 in.; number of boilers, 4; pressure carried, 9 lbs. per sq. in.; number of furnaces, 12; fire-grate area, 222 ft.; indicated horse-power, 740; coal consumption per indicated horse-power per hour, 5.1 lbs.; coal consumption per day, 38 tons; bunker capacity, 640 tons; cargo capacity, 225 tons; cabin passengers carried, 90; average speed, 8.5 knots.
It will thus be seen that these ships were not an advance upon the Great Western, but were even slightly smaller, with about the same coal consumption and with rather less speed.
Plan of the Hibernia and Cambria.
A, saloon; B, pantry; C, centre state-rooms; D, gentlemen’s cabin; E, ladies’ cabin; S, stairs; F, wine cellar; G, G, G, goods; K, stewards’ berths in centre; H, H, coal ho’d; P, P, fore-cabin; Q, steerage; L, forecastle; R, store-room; M, mail-room; O, sail-room; V, engineers and firemen.
The Hibernia and Cambria followed in 1843 and 1845, 530 tons larger in displacement, with 1,040 indicated horse-power, and steaming about 91⁄2 knots per hour. The plan gives an idea of these vessels which is far from fulfilling the ideas of the present Atlantic traveller, who considers himself a much-injured person if he has not electric lights and bells, baths ad libitum, and a reasonable amount of cubic space in which to bestow himself. None of the least of these existed in the earlier passenger ships; a narrow berth to sleep in and a plentiful supply of not over well prepared food were afforded, but beyond these there was little—notwithstanding the whole of the ship was given up to first-cabin passengers, emigrants not being carried in steamers until 1850, and it was not until 1853 that any steamer of the Cunard line was fitted for their accommodation.
How little it was possible to do for the wanderer to Europe in those days may be seen when comparison shows the Britannia to have been but half the length of the Umbria, but two-thirds her breadth, but six-tenths her depth, with much less than half her speed, and less than one-twentieth her power.
The establishment of the Cunard line marked the setting of ocean steam traffic firmly on its feet. What in 1835 had been stated by one of the most trusted scientific men of that time as an impossibility, and even in 1838 was in doubt, had become an accomplished fact; and while the proof of the practicability of the American route was making, preparations were in progress for the extension of steam lines which were soon to reach the ends of the world. A detailed statement of historic events is, of course, here out of place, but a mere mention of other prominent landmarks in steam navigation is almost a necessity. The founding of the Peninsular Company, in 1837, soon to extend its operations, under the name of the Peninsular and Oriental, to India, and the establishment, in 1840, of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, are dates not to be passed by. The establishment of the latter line was due to one of our own countrymen—William Wheelwright, of Newburyport, who, when consul at Guayaquil, grasped the conditions of the coast, and through his foresight became one of its greatest benefactors, and at the same time one of its most successful men. He failed in interesting our own people in the venture, and turned to London, where his success was greater. The Chili and Peru, the first vessels of this now great fleet, despatched in 1840, were but 198 feet long and of 700 tons. It was not until 1868 that the line was brought into direct communication with England by the establishment of monthly steamers from Liverpool to Valparaiso, via the Straits of Magellan. They had to await the diminished fuel consumption, which the company itself did so much to bring about through compound engines and surface condensation.
In the following years we ourselves were not idle. In 1843 the celebrated screw steamer Princeton—whose name is connected in so melancholy a manner with the bursting of the “Peacemaker” and the death of the then Secretary of the Navy, when he and a number of other high officials were visiting the ship—was built for the navy after Ericsson’s designs, and fitted with one of his propellers. She was 164 feet long, with 30 feet 6 inches beam, and a displacement, at 18 feet draught, of 1,046 tons. She had a very flat floor, with great sharpness forward and excessive leanness aft. She may almost be taken as representative of the later type in model. She had three boilers, each 26 feet long, 9 feet 4 inches high, and 7 feet wide, with a grate surface of 134 square feet. In 1845, Mr. R. B. Forbes, of Boston, so long known for his intimate and successful connection with shipping interests, built the auxiliary screw steamers Massachusetts and Edith for transatlantic trade. The former was somewhat the larger, and was 178 feet long and 32 broad. Her machinery was designed by Ericsson, and had 2 cylinders, 25 inches diameter, working nearly at right angles to each other. The machinery was built by Hogg & Delamater, of New York, and had the peculiarity of having the shaft pass through the stern at the side of the stern-post, under a patent of Ericsson’s. The propeller, on Ericsson’s principle, was 91⁄2 feet diameter, and could be hoisted when the ship was under sail. She made but one voyage to Liverpool, and was then chartered by our Government to carry troops to Mexico, in 1846; but was later bought into the naval service and known as the Farralones.
In June, 1847, the same year which witnessed the establishment of the Pacific Mail Company, the Washington, of 4,000 tons displacement, and of 2,000 indicated horse-power, was the pioneer of a line between New York and Bremen, touching at Southampton. The Hermann followed a little later, but was somewhat larger, the dimensions of the two ships being:
| Washington. | Hermann. | |
|---|---|---|
| Total length | 236 | 241 |
| Beam | 39 | 40 |
| Depth | 31 | 31 |
Their displacement was about 4,000 tons. The Franklin followed in 1848, and the Humboldt in 1850, both being a good deal larger than the two preceding. The latter two were, however, employed only between New York and Havre.
In 1850 the Collins line was formed, with a large Government subsidy. In the same year the Inman line was established, with screw steamers built of iron—two differences from the prevailing construction, which were to bear so powerful an influence in a few years against the success of steamers of the type brought out by the Collins company. In 1858 came the North German Lloyd, with the modest beginnings of its now great fleet, and in 1861 the French Compagnie Transatlantique. In 1863 the National line was established; in 1866 the Williams & Guion (now the Guion), which had previously existed as a line of sailing-packets; and in 1870 the White Star.
These are those in which we are most interested, as they touch our shores; but in the interval other lines were directed to all parts of the world, few seaports remaining, of however little importance, or lying however far from civilization, that cannot now be reached by regular steam communication.
The establishment of the Collins line was one of the great events of steamship history. We had been so successful upon our coasts, rivers, and lakes, that it was but natural we should make some effort to do our part with steam upon the greater field of international trade. It was impossible that the monopoly which had existed for ten years in the hands of the Cunard company should not be combated by some one, and with the advent of the Collins line came a strife for supremacy, the memories of which are still vivid in the minds of thousands on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Cunard company at this time had increased their fleet by the addition of the America, Niagara, Europa, and Columbia, all built in 1848. Their machinery did not differ materially from that of the preceding ships, in general design, but there had, in the course of practice, come better workmanship and design of parts, and the boiler pressure had been increased to 13 pounds, bringing the expenditure per horse-power down to 3.8 pounds per hour. In these ships the freight capacity had been nearly doubled, fifty per cent. had been added to their passenger accommodation, and the company was altogether pursuing the successful career which was due a line which could command $35 a ton for freight from Liverpool to New York—a reminiscence which must make it appear the Golden Age to the unfortunate steamship-owner of to-day, who is now most happy with a seventh of such earnings.
The Collins steamers were a new departure in model and arrangement; they were built by William H. Brown, a famous builder of the time; exceeded in size and speed anything then afloat, and reduced the journey in 1851 and 1852 to about 11 days—though some voyages were made in less than 10 days. The Cunard line put afloat the Asia and Africa as competitors, but they neither equalled the American steamers in size nor speed. The former were of 3,620 tons displacement, with 1,000 indicated horse-power. The comparison of size between them and the Collins steamers is as follows:
| Length. | Depth. | Beam. | Draught. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ft. | ft. | in. | ft. | ft. | in. | |
| Arctic | 282 | 32 | 45 | 20 | ||
| Asia | 266 | 27 | 2 | 40 | 18 | 9 |
The three other vessels of the Collins line were the Baltic, Atlantic, and Pacific. They formed a notable fleet, and fixed for many years to come the type of the American steamship in model and arrangement. They were the work of a man of genius who had the courage to cast aside tradition where it interfered with practical purposes. The bowsprit was dispensed with; the vertical stem, now so general, was adopted, and everything subordinated to the use of the ships as steamers.
But great disaster was in store for these fine ships. The Arctic, on September 21, 1854, while on her voyage out, was struck by the French steamer Vesta, in a fog off Cape Race, and but 46 out of the 268 persons on board were saved. The Pacific left Liverpool on June 23, 1856, and was never heard of after. The Adriatic, a much finer ship than any of her predecessors, was put afloat; but the line was doomed. Extravagance in construction and management, combined with the losses of two of their ships and a refusal of further aid from the Government, were too much for the line to bear, and in 1858 the end came. Ever since, the European companies, with the exception of the time during which the line from Philadelphia has been running and the time during which some desultory efforts have been put forth, have had to compete among themselves. The sworn statement of the Collins company had shown the first four ships to have cost $2,944,142.71. The actual average cost of each of the first 28 voyages was $65,215.64; and the average receipts, $48,286.85—showing a loss on each voyage of $16,928.79.
To discuss the causes of our failure to hold our own in the carrying trade of the world may seem somewhat out of place, but the subject is so interesting in many ways that a few words may not be amiss.
The following is a comparative table showing the steam tonnage of the United States and of the British Empire, beginning with the year in which ocean steam navigation may be said to have been put fairly on its feet. Our own is divided into “oversea,” or that which can trade beyond United States waters, and “enrolled,” which includes all in home waters:
| Years | United States | Total | British Empire (including Colonies) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oversea | Enrolled | |||
| 1838 | 2,791 | 190,632 | 193,423 | 82,716 |
| 1840 | 4,155 | 198,184 | 202,339 | 95,807 |
| 1842 | 4,701 | 224,960 | 229,681 | 118,930 |
| 1844 | 6,909 | 265,270 | 272,179 | 125,675 |
| 1846 | 6,287 | 341,606 | 347,893 | 144,784 |
| 1848 | 16,068 | 411,823 | 427,891 | 168,087 |
| 1850 | 44,942 | 481,005 | 525,947 | 187,631 |
| 1852 | 79,704 | 563,536 | 643,240 | 227,306 |
| 1854 | 95,036 | 581,571 | 676,607 | 326,484 |
| 1855 | 115,045 | … | … | … |
| 1856 | 89,715 | 583,362 | 673,077 | 417,717 |
| 1858 | 78,027 | 651,363 | 729,390 | 488,415 |
| 1860 | 97,269 | 770,641 | 500,144 | 500,144 |
It will be seen from this table how great the extension of the use of the steamboat had been in the United States in these earlier years, as compared with that elsewhere. In 1852 our enrolled tonnage had grown to more than half a million tons, or well on to three times the whole of that of the British Empire, and our oversea tonnage was about one-third of that of Great Britain and her dependencies.
One reason for this very rapid increase in the enrolled tonnage was, of course, the fact that railroads had not yet begun to seam the West, as they were shortly to do: the steamboat was the great and absolutely necessary means of transport, and was to hold its prominence in this regard for some years yet to come. When this change came, there came with it a change in circumstances which went far beyond all other causes in removing our shipping from the great place it had occupied in the first half of this century. But great as was the effect worked by this change, there were certain minor causes which have to be taken into account. We had grown in maritime power through the events of the Napoleonic wars—which, though they worked ruin to many an unlucky owner, enriched many more—as we were for some years almost the only neutral bottoms afloat; we had rapidly increased this power during the succeeding forty years, during which time our ships were notably the finest models and the most ably commanded on the seas; the best blood of New England went into the service, and one has but to read the reports of the English parliamentary commissions upon the shipping subject to realize the proud position which our ships and, above all, our ships’ captains held in the carrying trade. We had entered the steam competition with an energy and ability that promised much, but we gave little or no heed to changes in construction until long after they had been accepted by the rest of the world; and it is to this conservatism, paradoxical as the expression may seem applied to our countrymen, that part of our misfortune was due.
The first of the changes we were so unwilling to accept was that from wood to iron; the other was that from paddle to screw. Even so late as the end of the decade 1860-70, while all the world else was building ships of iron, propelled by screws, some of which were driven by compound engines, our last remaining great company, the Pacific Mail, put afloat four magnificent failures (from the commercial point of view), differing scarcely in any point, except in size, from those of 1850-56. They were of wood, and had the typically national over-head beam engine. They were most comfortable and luxurious boats; but the sending them into the battle of commerce at such a date, was like pitting the old wooden three-decker with her sixty-four pounders against the active steel cruiser of to-day and her modern guns. Many of the iron screws built at the same time are still in active service; but the fine old China, America, Alaska, and Japan are long since gone, and with them much of the company’s success and fortune.
Of course, one great reason for this non-acceptance was the fact that, with us, wood for ship-building was still plentiful, and that it was cheaper so to build than to build in iron, to which material English builders were driven by an exact reversal of these conditions; and the retention of the paddle over the screw was due in a certain degree to the more frequent necessity of repair of wooden screw ships, to which it is not possible to give the necessary structural strength at the stern to withstand successfully the jarring action of the screw at high speeds.
The part in advancing the British commercial fleet played by the abrogation of the navigation laws, in 1849, which had their birth in the time of Cromwell (and to which we have held with such tenacity, as ours were modelled upon theirs), need only be barely mentioned. British ship-owners were in despair at the change, and many sold off their ship property to avoid what they expected to be the ruin of the shipping trade, but the change was only to remove the fetters which they had worn so long that they did not know them as such.
But the great and overwhelming cause, to which the effect of our navigation laws were even secondary, was the opening up of the vast region lying west of the earlier formed States; the building of our gigantic system of railways; the exploitation, in a word, of the great interior domain, of the possibilities of which, preceding 1850, we were only dimly conscious, and so much of which had only just been added by the results of the Mexican War. It is so difficult, from the present standpoint, to realize the mighty work which has been done on the American continent in this short space of forty years, that its true bearings on this subject are sometimes disregarded. The fact that the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, at this date, was not running its trains beyond Cumberland, Md., will give an impression of the vastness of the work which was done later.
The period 1850-60 cannot be passed over without a mention of the Great Eastern, though she can hardly be said to have been in the line of practical development, which was not so much in enlargement of hull as in change in character of machinery. Brunel’s son, in his “Life” of his father, says: “It was no doubt his connection with the Australian Mail Company (1851-53) that led Mr. Brunel to work out into practical shape the idea of a great ship for the Indian or Australian service, which had long occupied his mind.”
The Great Eastern was to attempt to solve by her bulk the problem of coal capacity which was later to be solved by high pressures and surface condensation. The ship finally determined on was 680 feet long, 83 feet broad, with a mean draught of 25 feet, with screw engines of 4,000 indicated horse-power and paddle-engines of 2,600, to work with steam from 15 to 25 pounds pressure—thus curiously uniting in herself at this transition period the two rival systems of propulsion. She was begun at Millwall, London, in the spring of 1854, and was finally launched, after many difficulties, on January 30, 1858. Her history is too well known to be dwelt upon here. She has experienced many vicissitudes and misfortunes, and it is well that her great projector (who paid for her with his life, as he died the year after her launching) did not live to see her used as an exhibit, in 1886, in the River Mersey, her great sides serving to blazon the name and fame of a Liverpool clothing establishment. She was sold the next year for the pitiful sum of £8,000 and broken up.
The year 1855 marks the high-water mark of the paddle-steamer era. In that year were built the Adriatic, by the Collins line, and the Persia, as a competitor (and the twenty-eighth ship of the company), by the Cunard. But the former was of wood, the latter of iron. She was among the earlier ships of this material to be built by the Cunard company, and, with the slightly larger Scotia, built in 1862, was, for some years after the cessation of the Collins line, the favorite and most successful steamer upon the Atlantic. She was 376 feet long, 45 feet 3 inches broad, and of about 5,500 tons displacement. Her cylinders were 1001⁄2 inches diameter, with 120 inches stroke, and she had—as also the preceding ship, the Arabia—tubular boilers instead of the old flue.
