The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-21 00:00:00

Virg SECOND. UNSUCCESSFUL ATTIMPT

TO LAUNCH THE LEVIATHAN.

A mechanic writes to a contemporary as follows :
—ln my letter of the 7th inst. I was bold enough
,o say, " Whether Mr. Brunel waits for the spring
tides of next month, or wkether he waits for the
Greek Kalends, I do not believe he will be able to
force the Great Eastern down her present ways into
the water." Anticipating the tides of next month,
and having tried in vain to force the Leviathan
down her ways whi!e they were under water, he
tried to move the great monster ship yesterday
while the upper part of her ways was dry.
He sum eled by his hydraulic presses in thrusting
back the piles and hard solid earth by which their
reaction was sought to be prevente3, without caus-
ing
the Leviathan to budge a single inch. All the
manual labour he brought to bear on his numerous
windlasses removed yesterday from the lighters on
the river to a firm basis in the ship-yard, failed to
produce the slightest effect. He then tried his
stationary engine, at the rear of the bow of the ship,
only to break his cables, as he did on the previous
trial. _ _

Now, what kept the Leviathan so snug in her
cradles, as yourreporter facetiously observes ? Fric-
tion—the friction of iron on iron. Mr. Brunel has
committed the gross mechanical blunder of creating
he same retarding force between the surfaces of the
cradles and the ways as he made use of for checking
her progress down those ways shoald her velocity
have proved too great. His mind seems haunted
with one idea—all his arrangements are very per-
Feet, only in one direction—and that is to prevent
the great Leviathan giving him the slip and rushing
into the water.

Yet when he removes every impediment, when he
applies all the force he can muster, hydraulic,
manual, and steam, the vicious jade refuses to budge
one inch. What keeps her back ? She rests ou a
hill ; why don't she side down ? Simply because
that uncommonly useful mechanical retirder, fric-
tion, won't let her. The experiments of yesterday
and the 3d instant prove most satisfactorily that
Hr. Brunel's new-fangled mode of launching ships
is a great failure. I believe her builder, Mr. Scott
Russell, would have had her in the water long ago
had the matter been left to him. I need not point
out her builder, however, as I think any other
shipbuilder would have accomplished the launch
as well. The shareholders have the consolation of
knowing, however, that their engineer, by two
costly experiments, has proved the magnitude of the
force of friction even on an incline of one in twelve,
when flat iron surfaces are made to slide on a sharp
ridged surface. The cost of these two experiment,
it is to be hoped, will be fairly stated when the ac-
counts of the Great Eastern Company are next
audited, as they will afford an interesting feature of
the next great work on shipbuilding and naval
architecture.

We have bean told that the pressure per square
foot of the Duke of Wellington on the ways by
which she was launched was considerably less than
that of the Leviathan on her ways. That launch
was accomplished successfully without danger, be-
cause the old well-tried and established method of
launching was had recourse to. _ Your reporter
states that bad wood been made to slide on wood
the ways would have fired—at least that this is the
opinion of scientific gentlemen. I marvel where
they got their science. If anything can be learnt
from the experiments of one Count Rumford, who
was a man of science, it is this—that almost the
only plan of procuring an unlimited supply of heat
is the friction of dry surfaces of metal on ene an-
other. Mr. Brunel, I believe, has taken the best
means he could devise to fire his ways, and I fancy
he was rather afraid of it in his expert firemen on
board the ship.
I hope, sir, that the principles of friction will be
a little better understood than they were before
Mr. Brunel's two costly experiments.