The Sun.
London, England, 1838-07-09 00:00:00

DR. LARDNER ON STEAM

NAVIGATION.

The New York l'apers arrived to-day announce the arrival
of the Great Western at that port on the 17th ult., in the
morning, after a passage of fourteen days from Bristol. Thi-
is the greatest achievement yet performed by steam navi
gation, and we were prepared to expect this and more
by the judicious conduct of the owners of that magnificent
ship. Their object on the first voyage was not to put the
Great Western to the top of her speed, but to make the
voyage in a reasonable time, at as small an expense of coal as
possible. She is capable, therefore, of doing more than she
performed in the first voyage. At this instant we learn that
she has arrived at Bristol, having made the voyage
home in thirteen days; thus reducing the time of the
voyage both out and home almost to a certainty,
and shortening it on the average very nearly one
half. To appreciate the success of the voyage out, we
must remind our readers that sailing ships very seldom per-
form that in less than twenty-five days, and some ships have
been 100. The Quarterly Review states the average for the
Liners at thirty-two days, and publishes several cases of these
fine sailing vessels having been more than forty days out.
What Dr. Lardner will say to this we are not quite aware;
but he has, we see, explained and retracted some of
hi assertions in the last number of the Monthly Chronicle,
A correspondent has sent us some observations on the Doc-
tor's errors, and those of his scientific brethren, which we shall
lay before our readers in his own worth. lie says, and be
wrote before the news had reached London of the last voyage
of the Great Western:—

" The Doctor, like other great men, has his admirers in the
provinces, if not in the metropolis ; but how the great Lumi-
naries of the Association, the shining lights, the master spirits,
from all parts, could allow themselves to become converts to
statements and calculations based upon data palpably unilate-
ral and insufficient, one is at a loss to conceive. Mr. Brunel,
at the Bristol 'sleeting, detected the Doctor's errors
in calculation, errors all on one side, and would have
annihilated his theories and have overthrown his ar-
guments, but the Meeting had patience only for Dr. Lardner,
who really appeared to he leader of a tail. During the inter-
val of the Association gatherings, the voyages of the Atalanta
and Berenice proved the correctness of the predictions of the
promoters of the project, and the fallacy of the Doctor's argu-
ments ; he, nevertheless, repeated his lecture without varia-
tion, at Liverpool. There was ground for a suspicion that he
was influenced by other motives at Bristol, than a desire to
make a candid statement of what he thought really to be the
difficulties in the way of the experiment, far while he argued
that the distance between Bristol and St. John's was beyond
the " locomotive duty" of any quantity of coals a ship could
stow for the power necessary efficiently to propel her, or
"that the distance exceeded that which could possibly be ac-
complished by steam-engines, without further discovery and
improvement"—he pronounced the voyage between the West
Coast of Ireland and Sydney, in Nova Scotia (which is one
hundred miles further), as perfectly compatible with steam
combinations as they were then known I Fayal and St.
John's are glanced at in Captain Claxton's Report as points
for a supply of fuel. The Doctor, with unaccount-
able temerity, described the course to the latter place
as blocked up with icebergs, and the land enve-
loped in fogs, impediments to navigation replete with
difficulty and danger, seeming to forget that impediments
only dissimilar by reason of their increased degree stood in
the way of his own haven of Sydney, to reach which nearly
the same course must be followed, and where, in addition to
ice and fogs (which latter on the coast of Nova Scotia noto-
riously prevail) there arc round Sable Island (to the north
of the parallel of Halifax), some sands and shoals of a dan-
gerous character.
" There is no doubt that the authority of the Learned
Gentleman had great (ffect on the Great Western Com-
pany, aed for a time damped the ardour of many spirited
individuals who, with credit to themselves, had cheerfully
advanced their money in the cause. If he bad lectured
a little sooner, he wculd probably have prevented the
formation of the Company and the progress of Trans-
atlantic storming, probably for along season, if not altogether.
A change, however, was wrought in the spirit of his dream by
the thorough exposition of the utter insufficiency of the data,
whence he deduced his facts, by one of its Directors. Mr.
Thomas Guppy, at Liverpool, last August, where, and when,
nevertheless, the Council of the Association voted Dr. Lard-
ner 100/. Pr the purpose of ascerta'ning the locomotive duty
of a ton of coals with a view to American Steaming. At the
rate the Doctor is to be pail, the Great Western Company
and the British and American Company, have a claim upon
200,0001. for having practically elucidated the locomotive duty
of near 2.000 tons, expended in Transatlantic Steaming between
them on 1110 first voyage of the Great IVesiern and Sirius. The
Doctor will no doubt at Newcastle ride home on the question of
a profitable result to which with others he alluded, both here
and at Liverpool ; experience, however, even in this bids fair to
overthrow his calculations. He has, in sporting phrase, already
bsgan to hedge, for in his letter to Lord Melbourne, his last
publication, page 30, is an admission that a steam-frigate, dis-
encumbered of her guns (which brings her to a parallel with
a merchant steamer of the same tonnage), can carry coals
sufficient for 3,000 miles steaming I I Why this is all that
those he thought fit to set down, as " persons whose opi_
nions were not entitled to respect (vide Edinburgh Re-
view), and whose opinions le so pertinaciously op-
posed, have ever contended for. The Doctor pronounced
the possible maximum to be 2,000 miles, they 3.000 miles and
something more, with the occasional assistance of canvass when
the wind favoured. It cannot be denied that to the super-
ficial observer his conclusions were deduced from well authen-
ticated facts, but there was no lack of facts, well authenticated
ones too, to prove the converse of his reasoning ; those the
Doctor chose to illustrate his subject with, should have in most
cases been treated as exceptions rather than rules. The
grand, the principal objection he advanced, that to which
all his others were made subservient, was the utter impos-
sibility of any steam ship stowing a sufficient quantity of coals
for constant steaming in a run of 3,000 miles, more or less,
but thereabout. The Logs incontestably prove the fallacy of
the assertion, and to a wonderful degree bear out Captain
Claxton's statements in the appendix, No. L, of the work
before us. Among the minor reasons he advanced were
some absurdities about soot choaking the chimnies—
the action of sea water with continued steaming for
any length of time beyond a few days choking the boilers
entirely, and the heavy seas the ship would have to contend
against, causing such a commotion, so much pitching, tossing,
and rolling, as to be quite incompatible with the due working
of the machinery, unless Morgan's feathering wheels were
used, which he stated were liable to get out of order. How
stands the fact in answer to these opinions ?
" The Sirius at starting had to contend against heavy gales,
dead on end and nobly did she encounter and overcome
them. The Great Western also experienced a heavy
gale on the Banks of Newfoundland, ( where, through
the contiguity of the Gulf stream, and shallowness of the
water, there are to be found more dangerous cross seas than in
any other part of the Atlantic), in the middle of which the
wind shifted in a squall from S. S.W. to N. W. The sea may
be imagined, breaking, boiling, foaming, meeting, sometimes the
wheels immersed, sometimes free altogether, still the ship
went on, and never less than six knots, with the wind dead
against her. The Log records plenty of rolling, at
other times with the wind aft and quartering. Both ships
went on, and went on without Morgan's or any other
feathering wheels; the cycloidals bring in use in both. The
most charitable conclusion at which one can arrive, is to be-
lieve the Doctor was aware of the real state of the case, for it is
absurd to suppose such improvements have taken place, and so
recently, as to afford altogether new ground for reasoning;
care of fuel and no undue draft on the product of the boiler
are the great secrets now, as they were when the Doctor lec-
tured. Of all the checks to the progress of knowledge,
drawing conclusions from facts, either not well attested or uni-
lateral, has in former ages been the greatest, and this is the
error the Doctor has fallen into.---' Peace to his manes.'"