The Sun.
London, England, 1852-04-09 00:00:00

OVvitinit %-us Ant

LONDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 9, 1852.

January was rendered remarkable in the history 0
Calamities at Sea by the burning of the Amazon,
and February by the loss of the Birkenhead. It is
earnestly to be hoped that the ten subsequent months
of the year are not destined to be remembered by
some similar catastrophe. Improbable though such a
supposition may appear, there is, nevertheless, a very
dreadful possibility that it may actually be realised,
unless some better system of arrangements be forth-
with adopted by the maritime profession generally,
and by them practically appl:ed to the science of na-
vigation. Additional measures of prevention, for ex-
ample, should be taken— [common sense tells us that]
—proportioned to the facilities of locomotion obtained,
in defiance of wind and tide, by the employment of
the powers derivable from the steam-engine. What was
activity under the old and sluggish system of crossing
the ocean under canvas,
days, with the aid of branweal; be indolence nowa-
days,
stoker and regnl machinery, fed by
new What
might by the er, •
eincer
might have been
s in the sailing vessels of
the last century, would,
on board the steam-ships
of the present, be either the most dull-eyed stupidity
or the most culpable negligence. Compare the speed
calculatio
n
obtained on an average
under those re-
spective circumstances, and then it
be estimated how considerable ought may more easily
be the in-
crease of alacrity, of activity, o e rto
of precautionary regulations of a:boughs, and
kinds ima-
ginable, in regard to those splendid structures
which are being perpetually borne over the
deep
more rapidly than on the wings of the • nd—Seas
veaided
by the fins of the paddle-wheel or the worm
screw. propeller. Tice velocity acquired of the
by the in-
ternal, application of a motive-power, independent of
all the ordinary operations of nature, necessitates
relaSive increase of dangers to be encountered, or at
any rate, under the most favourable circumstances, an
increase in the repidity of their succession. The
reasonableness of our remarks upon this head
must, we conceive, be altogether tco obvious to re-
quire any very elaborate series of illustrations. Un-
fortusaittely, the frequency and magnitude of the evi-
dencea afforded of the aecuracy of such opinions
as those here advanced would be circumstances
sufficient of themselves to preclude us from
the necessity of reverting to casualties long pas*, or
nearly altogether forgotten. The Great Britain, it
would scarcely be extravagant to assert, could never
but for the steam speed with which she was traversing
the Bristol Channel have run feui, or at any rate so
far foul, on the coast of Ireland. The President, but
for the weight of her engines, &c., coupled with her
extraordinary length from stem to stern, could not
hove broken her hick (as it is generally conjectured
see did) and foundered, without leaving a vestige
of aer floating on the surface to tell
the world of her disappearance. The poor Amazon—
as is tolerably notorious by this time, notwithstanding
the doeabtful and even contradictory evidence adduced
on two successive investigations, could not but for
the fact of her being a steamer have ignited as easily
or have consumed with as frightful celerity. Whether
the origin
of the flames lay is the heat of the bear-
ings ,sr in the d • '►;""
• t°P"'
o' oil on the tarrad coal-sacks,
it is c
*ltem that the timber of the vessel round the
en •
gin".e.als had been
facilitiesdried up so as to hold out
for the spread of combustion, while it is no
less certain that the engine w
s themselves swamped the
boats, and fanned
and horror to the lacthe
114ca3:', ing death
bearing them on aktless crew and p•l9scng,rs, by
waves and the fall speed through the
almost to the very darknesscloseoftrorn the commencernmt
Birkenhead, in like manner, bat rnfiag
oba,bility, have ration. The
of her being a steam-ship instead of circumstance
eailing vessel
would not, in all human pr
070 beaten her-
on the sunken rem.
self to pieces
southern coast of Africa, near Point 171" off the
maintaining thie, however, we should anger. Is
grievously mistaken indeed if our „°Tac verny
ts
were suppaased to be antagonistic in any way
the employment of steam as a motive
power at see. All we would insist upon h,