The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-24 00:00:00

THE GREAT EASTERN BEACHED AT

iIfILFORD.

MILFORD, SATURDAY, SEPT. 22.
The operation was performed in a manner which
reflected great credit upon Captain Vine Hall, and
the powerful paddle engines snowed themselves as
docile and manageable in the experienced hands of
Mr. M'Lennan as they had done upon any previous
occasion. The extraordinary facility with which
the Great Eactern was handled was again the sub-
ject of universal admiration. The gridiron upon
which the ship is now placed is about 580 feet in
length, or equal to the whole length of the level bottom
of the ship. About 100 feet at the head is unsup-
ported, owing to the curve line of the bow, but at the
stern the keel rests upon the beach. Visitors can walk
entirely round the ship, and the enormous mass of
hull, the gigantic network of iron in the wheels, and
the vast size of the screw, high overhead, look most
imposing when the tide is out. Three blades of
the screw were broken at the edges during the
storm at Holyhead. The pieces broken off must
have been several hundred pounds in weight, but
the accident has not seriously affected the working
power of the screw.
At low water on Friday there was a general
movement of those connected with the great ship
to search for the wonderful and gigantic forms of
vegetable and animal life which it was supposed
would be found vegetating on the ship's bottom.
It was to these weeds and luxuriant vegetation
that the comparatively slow rate. of speed was at-
tributed, and it was their removal, as the public
were over and over again told, that was to have the
effect of giving an addition of at least two knots an
hour. There was no doubt, it was said, that the
speed was in her, but the weeds outside were too
much; remove them, and New York was within
seven or eight days of England. Judge, then, of the
astonishment of the directors and others when, after
floundering about in the mud, duly provided with
lanterns, and stumbling over the iron bars of
the gridiron, nothing was to be found but some
wretched stubby little hairy tufts and a few diminu-
tive "limpets," among which one of half an inch in
length was secured by Mr. Appold as a veritable
giant among those parasitical molusca. There are
many portions of the ship's side and bottom, of seve-
sal feet in area, upon which not a solitary weed cr
shell, or any form of foulness is to be found. A care-
ful calculation, founded on an examination of seve-
ral large areas, shows that on an average there
is one tuft of weed to about two square feet of
surface. Those tufts are small circular spots, very
closely resembing in form, size, and general ap•
pearance, those hirsute developments upon the
human Chin known as " imperials." They are
not even mossy or spongy, and do not, therefore,
absorb and hold any quantity of water; they
are formed of coarse, stubborn hair, and the
most hardy species of barnacles could not hope to
obtain pasturage or herbage upon them. The
general appearance of the side of the ship below the
water line is that of an old brick wall, bronzed
with age, and slightly covered with- grey and yel-
low lichen. The rich vegetation which covered the
ship while in Southampton water was almost
entirely removed before she left for America, and
any that remained was effectually cleared off in the
Atlantic. It was necessary for the purpose of
preserving the ship to clean and scrape her, and
give her some coats of paint, but there was
clearly no necessity for beaching her with the
view of obtaining any increased speed. All the
scraping and painting in the world will not add
the fraction of a knot to her capabilities in this
respect.
The gridiron is a work which occupied the labour
of 200 men for something like two months. The
beach, to the distance of 580 yards, was excavated
and levelled to within a few feet of low water-
mark at spring-tides. The arrangement for the
reception of the ship consists of two ' grids,' 50
yards distant from the other. Each of these is
150 ft. in length, and is constructed of 40 strong
transverse beams of 45, 35, 30, and 25ft. in length,
kept in their place by iron-shod piles. The longest
of these baulks is laid nearest amidships, and the
others taper off in the same proportion as the beam
of the ship. The dolphins are 30ft. in height, and
are made of baulks of timber 13 inches square,
clamped and bolted together: Their use is to sup-
port the ship and prevent her leaning over on the
land side ; powerful hawsers and chains attached
to the piling prevent her heeling over on the oppo-
site side. At low water the ship sits perfectly up-
right on the beach, the bottom having no keel, and
being flat for a very large portion of its breadth.
There is no likelihood of getting the ship off the'
beach at the next " springs, as there will not then
be more than sixteen feet of water. Thursday
was the last day upon which she floated with
the present high tides. There will, in fact, be
no chance of getting her off until the 15th or
16th of October, and then only in the event of the
wind being favourable to the set of the tide. With
a good south-westerly wind the depth of water will
not be more than twenty feet, and should the wind
blow from any other quarter on those days the
Great Eastern will have to pass several months o
idleness. Under the most favourable circumstances,
the voyage to America, therefore,
as announced for
the 17th of October, is an impossibility, for should
the ship be floated from her present position she
would require at least three weeks for coaling, as
there is not a single mechanical appliance on board
for facilitating the taking in of coal. There is,
however, another cause of delay, and that by far
the most important one, viz., the condition of
the screw shaft and its bearings. With this
part of the machinery in its present con-
dition, it is vain to attempt to go to
sea. Owing to its construction in the first instance,
this screw has given an immense deal of trouble,
Originally the ponderous shaft, to which the screw
is attached, worked on bearings of soft or white
metal, an admirable invention for those parts of
machinery which are not subjected to the action
of salt water, but wholly unsuited in cases where
the metal is exposed. As a consequence these
bearings worked almost entirely out in the journey
round from Holyhead. Bearings of lignunt vita
were then substituted, but again with the same
result. The iron shaft worked into these hard
bearings to such an extent that they are cut away
to the depth of 41 inches on the outside. At work,
therefore, the machinery would strain in every
part to such an extent as inevitably to break down
altogether; to sly nothing of the enormous leak-
age through this enlarged opening under water,
and which no amount of packing could effec-
tually prevent. What course is to be taken
to set this matter right has not yet been
decided upon. It is an affair which cannot be
patched up or glossed over. The shaft will not
work properly, nor, indeed, at all, unless its bear-
ings are perfectly true and accurate, while the
friction of the iron surface of this shaft of some-
thing like 100 tons weight, with a screw of twenty-
four tons hanging at its extremity, and making
forty or more revolutions in the minute, will de-
stroy everything with which it comes into contact.
The plan adopted in the ships in the navy and
other large screw vessels is the only one that has
been found to succeed, namely, that of casing the
shaft in brass. This metal will work upon the lig-
-1/1/7/1 vita' without wearing away either of the sur-
faces at the enormous rate at which they were de-
stroyed in the voyage to New York and back. If this
should be done, and it does not appear that any
other course is open, the alteration will occupy
several weeks. It is a work, too, which cannot be
conveniently effected while the ship is afloat, as the
shaft revolves entirely under water. This alteration,
moreover, is one which involves considerable cost.
So far as the hull of the ship is concerned, it
is perfectly sound; not a rivet appears to have
started, and she is as water-tight as when she left
the yard at Millwall. The directors will, no doubt,
shortly make some announcements respecting the
future movements of the ship. A short time since
Mr. Yates, the secretary, wrote a letter, by order of
the board, stating that the Great Eastern would
leave for New York on the 15th of October. It
would be a most profitable time to the voyage;
there are numbers of Americans in England and on
the Continent who will return about that time, and
there are enormous quantities of wheat and flour
which have been purchased on the other side of the
Atlantic, in anticipation of a bad harvest at home,
which might make up a return freight for the ship.
It is clear, however, that the Great Eastern cannot
all probability,
leavewith i nMtihl feo following lbo ywitnhgatmdonattel:."°r' in

THE GLASGOW GARIBALDI FUN D.—The Glasgow
committee made the usual weekly remittance to London
on Wednesday, and the contributions hitherto remitted to
London from Glasgow and the west of Scotland amount to
the sum of £2,450.
GARIBALDI'S OFFICERS.—Vice Admiral Persano
to whom General Garibaldi, on entering Naples. assigned
the command of the Neapolitan fleet, is a brother-in-law of
Mr. Huntley Bacon, ono of the Colchester magistrates. A
nephew of Mr. Bacon, Lieut. Cigala, is aide-de-camp
to General de la Rocca.

the late Mr. Joseph Lccke, M.P. for Honitor, were removed
THE LATE Mn. LOCKE, M.P.—The remains of
from Cranstoun's private hotel, where he died on Wednes-
day, the 19th inst., at five o clock. His body was enclosed
in a wooden shell, a lead coffin, and an outer wooden cover.
'
Previous to enclosure in this "narrow house," a post mor-
tem examination was made, and the local medical attend-
ants' opinion of the seat and cause of the disease was fully
confirmed .by the state of the intestines, when they were
investigated by Dr. Aitken, of London, Mr. Locke's own
medical attendant. It seems that while out shooting on
Saturday Mr. Locke had felt chilly, and had sat down for
a while. No danger was dreaded, and up till
Sunday
evening, though complaining of inconvenience,
there was no idea of illness entertained. The condi-
tion of the body prdved that he must have borne much
agony, and yet he remained sensible up till a very short
period before his demise,--Glasgow Herald.