Part 12 (1/2)
The _Nautical Magazine_ writer gravely comments upon this scheme as quite plausible. He is indeed inclined to be antic.i.p.atory. Instead of seventy-three days to Australia, he is of opinion that the voyage may ultimately be accomplished in fifty, and that the table of time generally may be reduced by about one-third throughout; although, to qualify his somewhat daring speculations, he admits that it is well to base the calculations on the safe side. But the Honourable East India Company a.s.serted their prerogatives, and put a stop to the scheme of the New Bengal Steam Company, as the undertaking was to have been called.
This raised a strong feeling of dissatisfaction, and the Court of Directors was obliged to provide a subst.i.tute in lieu of the new line they had refused to sanction. Their own homely, lubberly craft were quite unequal to the requirements of 'prompt despatch' which even then was beginning to agitate the public mind. The possibility of establis.h.i.+ng steam-communication between England and India had been clearly demonstrated as early as the year 1825, when the _Enterprise_, of 480 tons and 120 horse-power, sailed from London on the 16th of August, and arrived in Calcutta on the seventh of December. She was the first steamer to make the pa.s.sage from this country to our great Eastern Empire; the first, indeed, ever to double the stormy headland of the Cape.
But it was not until the people of India began to pet.i.tion and the merchants of London to clamour for the adoption of steam-power in the Indian navigation that the conservative old magnates of John Company were stimulated into action. Lieutenant Waghorn's Overland Route had almost entirely superseded the sea-voyage by way of the Cape; but the want of an efficient packet service between London and Alexandria, and Suez and Bombay, was greatly felt. Accordingly, in December 1836, the steams.h.i.+p _Atalanta_ was despatched from Falmouth to ply on the Indian side of the route. She was a vessel of 630 tons burden, with engines of 210 horse-power, and was built at Blackwall by the once famous firm of Wigram & Green. The orders of Captain Campbell, who commanded her, were that he was to steam the whole distance, only resorting to sail-power in case of a failure of machinery, in order fully to test the superiority of the marine engine over canvas. She sustained an average speed of about eight knots an hour during the entire pa.s.sage, and but for her repeated stoppages would undoubtedly have accomplished the quickest voyage yet made to India. She was followed, in March 1837, by the _Bernice_, of 680 tons and 230 horse-power. This vessel, which likewise made the run without the a.s.sistance of her sails, left Falmouth on March 17, and arrived at Bombay on the 13th of June.
As the race between the _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_ may be said to have inaugurated the steam-navigation of the Atlantic, so did the voyages of the _Atalanta_ and _Bernice_ first establish regular communication by steamers between Great Britain and India. True, there had been desultory efforts of enterprise prior to this time, and the pioneer of the Peninsular and Oriental steamers, the _Royal Tar_, had sailed some three years before; but there was no continual service. The _Times_ of November 11, 1838, pointed out the approaching change.
'Scarcely,' it says, 'has the wonder created in the world by the appearance of the _Great Western_ and _British Queen_ begun to subside, when we are again called upon to admire the rapid strides of enterprise by the notice of an iron steams.h.i.+p, the first of a line of steamers to ply between England and Calcutta, to be called the _Queen of the East_, 2618 tons, and 600 horse-power. This magnificent vessel is designed by Mr W. D. Holmes, engineer to the Bengal Steam Committee, for a communication between England and India. Great praise is due to Captain Barber, late of the Honourable East India Company's service, the agent in London for the Steam Committee in Bengal, who has given every encouragement to Mr Holmes in carrying forward his splendid undertaking.
When these vessels are ready, we understand the voyage between Falmouth and Calcutta will be made in thirty days.'
From this time ocean steamers multiplied rapidly. One after another of the now famous s.h.i.+pping firms sprang up, beginning with the Cunard and the Peninsular and Oriental lines. The first British steams.h.i.+p was registered at London in the year 1814: in 1842 there were 940 steamers registered; and already was the decay of the sailing-s.h.i.+p so largely antic.i.p.ated, that Mr Sydney Herbert, in a Committee of the House of Commons, had this same year pointed out 'that the introduction of steamers, and the consequent displacement of the Leith smacks, Margate hoys, &c., would diminish the nursery for seamen by lessening the number of sailing-vessels.'
THE NEW CUNARDERS.
Less than fifty years ago the Eastern Steam-navigation Company having failed to obtain the contract to carry the mails from Plymouth to India and Australia--in vessels of from twelve hundred to two thousand tons, with engines of from four to six hundred horse-power, which were never built--began to consider a new enterprise, suggested by the late Isambard K. Brunei. This was to build the largest steamer ever yet constructed, to trade with India round the Cape of Good Hope. The general commercial idea was, that this leviathan vessel was to carry leviathan cargoes at large freights and great speed, to Ceylon, where the goods and pa.s.sengers would be rapidly trans-s.h.i.+pped to smaller swift steamers for conveyance to various destinations in India, China, and Australia. The general mechanical idea was, that in order to obtain great velocity in steamers it was only necessary to make them large--that, in fact, there need be no limit to the size of a vessel beyond what might be imposed by the tenacity of material. On what was called the tubular principle, Brunei argued--and proved to the satisfaction of numerous experts and capitalists--that it was possible to construct a vessel of six times the capacity of the largest vessel then afloat that would steam at a speed unattainable by smaller vessels, while carrying, besides cargo, all the coal she would require for the longest voyage.
Thus originated the _Great Eastern_, which never went to India, which ruined two or three companies in succession, which cost 120,000 to launch, which probably earned more as a show than ever she did as an ocean-carrier--except in the matter of telegraph cables--and which ign.o.bly ended a disastrous career by being sold for 16,000, and broken up at New Ferry, on the Mersey.
We are now entering upon a new era of big s.h.i.+ps, in which such a monster as the _Great Eastern_ would be no longer a wonder. Two additions to the Cunard fleet, the _Campania_ (1892) and _Lucania_ (1893), are within a trifle as large as she, but with infinitely more powerful engines and incomparably greater speed.
We need not suppose, however, that the idea of big ocean steamers has been the monopoly of this country. So long ago as 1850 or thereabouts, Mr Randall, a famous American s.h.i.+pbuilder, designed, drafted, and constructed the model of a steamer for transatlantic service, 500 feet long by 58 feet beam, to measure 8000 tons. A company was formed in Philadelphia in 1860 to carry out the project; but the civil war broke out soon after, and she was never built.
The _Great Eastern_ was launched in January 1858, and her princ.i.p.al dimensions were these: Length between perpendiculars, 680 feet; breadth of beam, 83 feet; length of princ.i.p.al saloons, 400 feet; tonnage capacity for cargo and coals, 18,000 tons; weight of s.h.i.+p as launched, 12,000 tons; accommodation for pa.s.sengers, (1) 800, (2) 2000, (3) 1200 = 4000; total horse-power, 7650. She had both screw and paddles for propulsion, and her displacement was 32,160 tons.
By this time the Cunard Company had been eighteen years in existence.
They started in 1840 with the _Britannia_--quickly followed by the _Acadia_, _Columbia_, and _Caledonia_, all more or less alike--which was a paddle-steamer of wood, 207 feet long, 34 feet broad, 22 feet deep, and of 1156 tons, with side-lever engines developing 740 indicated horse-power, which propelled the vessel at the average speed of nine knots an hour. There was accommodation for 225 tons of cargo and 115 cabin pa.s.sengers--no steerage in those days--who paid thirty-four guineas to Halifax and thirty-eight guineas to Boston, for pa.s.sage, including provisions and wine.
At the time of the _Great Eastern_ the latest type of Cunarder was the _Persia_, and it is interesting to note the development in the interim.
This vessel was 380 feet long, 45 feet broad, 31 feet deep, of 3870 tons, with engines developing 4000 indicated horse-power, propelling at the rate of thirteen and a half knots an hour. The _Persia_ and the _Scotia_, sister-s.h.i.+ps, were the last of the Atlantic side-wheelers. In 1862 the first screw-steamer was added to the Cunard fleet. This was the _China_, built by the Napiers of Glasgow, 326 feet long by 40-1/2 feet broad, and 27-1/2 feet deep, of 2600 tons, and with an average speed of about twelve knots.
Such was the type of Cunarder in the early days of the _Great Eastern_, whose dimensions have now been nearly reached. The _Campania_, however, was not built with a view to outs.h.i.+ne that huge failure, but is the outcome of a wholly different compet.i.tion. The _Campania_ and the _Lucania_ represent the highest development of marine architecture and engineering skill, and are the product of long years of rivalry for the possession of the 'blue ribbon' of the transatlantic race.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The _Great Eastern_ and the _Persia_.]
The compet.i.tion is of ancient date, if we go back to the days when the American 'Collins' Company tried to run the Cunard Company off the waters; and during the half-century since the inauguration of steam service the Cunard Company have sometimes held and sometimes lost the highest place for speed. The period of steam-racing--the age of 'Atlantic greyhounds'--may be said to have begun in the year 1879, when the Cunard _Gallia_, the Guion _Arizona_, and the White Star _Britannic_ and _Germanic_ had all entered upon their famous careers. It is matter of history now how the _Arizona_--called the 'Fairfield Flyer,'
because she was built by Messrs John Elder & Company, of Fairfield, Glasgow--beat the record in an eastward run of seven days twelve and a half hours, and a westward run of seven days ten and three-quarter hours. To beat the _Arizona_, the Cunard Company built the _Servia_, of 8500 tons and 10,300 horse-power; but she in turn was beaten by another Fairfield Flyer, the _Alaska_, under the Guion flag. The race continued year by year, as vessels of increasing size and power were entered by the competing companies. While all the lines compete in swiftness, luxury, and efficiency, the keenest rivalry is now between the Cunard and the White Star companies. And just as the _Campania_ and _Lucania_ were built to eclipse the renowned _Teutonic_ and _Majestic_, so the owners of these boats prepared to surpa.s.s even the two Cunarders we describe.
Let us now see something of these marvels of marine architecture. They are sister-s.h.i.+ps, both built on the Clyde by the Fairfield s.h.i.+pbuilding and Engineering Company, and both laid down almost simultaneously. They are almost identical in dimensions and appointments, and therefore we may confine our description to the _Campania_, which was the first of the twins to be ready for sea.
This largest vessel afloat does not mark any new departure in general type, as the _Great Eastern_ did in differing from all types of construction then familiar. In outward appearance, the _Campania_, as she lies upon the water, and as seen at a sufficient distance, is just like numbers of other vessels we have all seen. Nor does her immense size at first impress the observer, because of the beautiful proportions on which she is planned. Her lines are eminently what the nautical enthusiast calls 'sweet;' and in her own cla.s.s of naval art she is as perfect a specimen of architectural beauty as the finest of the grand old clippers which used to 'walk the waters as a thing of life.' The colossal size of St Peter's at Rome does not strike you as you enter, because of the exquisite proportions. And so with the _Campania_--you need to see an ordinary merchant-s.h.i.+p, or even a full-blown liner, alongside before you can realise how vast she is.
Yet she is only 60 feet shorter than the mammoth _Great Eastern_, and measures 620 feet in length, 65 feet 3 inches in breadth, and 43 feet in depth from the upper deck. Her tonnage is 12,000, while that of the _Great Eastern_ was 18,000; but then her horse-power is 30,000 as against the _Great Eastern's_ 7650!
This enormous development of engine-power is perhaps the most remarkable feature about these two new vessels. Each of them is fitted with two sets of the most powerful triple-expansion engines ever put together. A visit to the engine-room is a liberal education in the mechanical arts, and even to the eye of the uninitiated there is the predominant impression of perfect order in the bewildering arrangement of pipes, rods, cranks, levers, wheels, and cylinders. The two sets of engines are placed in two separate rooms on each side of a centre-line bulkhead fitted with water-tight doors for intercommunication. Each set has five inverted cylinders which have exactly the same stroke, and work on three cranks. Two of the cylinders are high-pressure, one is intermediate, and two are low-pressure. Besides the main engines, there are engines for reversing, for driving the centrifugal pumps for the condensers, for the electric light, for the refrigerating chambers, and for a number of other purposes--all perfect in appointment and finish. In fact, in these vast engine-rooms one is best able to realise not only the immense size and power of the vessel, but also the perfection to which human ingenuity has attained after generations of ceaseless toil--and yet it is only half a century since the _Britannia_ began the transatlantic race.
Each of the various engines has its own steam-supplier. The main engines are fed by twelve double-ended boilers, arranged in rows of six on each side of a water-tight bulkhead. The boilers are heated by ninety-six furnaces, and each set of six boilers has a funnel with the diameter of an ordinary railway tunnel. In the construction of these boilers some eight hundred tons of steel were required, the plates weighing four tons each, with a thickness of an inch and a half. From these mighty machines will be developed a power equal to that of 30,000 horses! Compare this with the _Great Eastern's_ 7650 horse-power, or even with the later 'greyhounds.' The greatest power developed by the two previous additions to the Cunard fleet, the _Etruria_ and _Umbria_, is about 14,000 horses, which is the utmost recorded by any single-screw engines. The _City of Paris_ has a power of 18,500, and the _Teutonic_ a power of 18,000 by twin-screw engines. The _Campania_, therefore, is upwards of half as much again more powerful than the largest, swiftest, and most powerful of her predecessors.
These engines of the _Campania_ work two long propeller-shafts, each carried through an aperture in the stern close to the centre-line, and fitted to a screw. Unlike other twin-screw vessels, the propellers and shafts are, as it were, carried within the hull, and not in separate structures. Abaft of the screws, the rudder is completely submerged, and is a great ma.s.s of steel-plating weighing about twenty-four tons.