The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-06 00:00:00

GENERAL WILSOY.

At a dinner at Beecles, Suffolk, to commemorate
the fall of Delhi, Licut.-Ceionet Wilson gave the
,following interesting sketch of the career of his
oroth3r, General Wilson. Althou4ll he has hitherto
had no European reputation, he has not been un-
known in India. In 1819, at the early age of 17,
and before ha had eitnpleted his military studies,
the India government being in want of artillery
officers, he want to Bengal. Having theme completed
the practical part of his education, he was employed
in various parts of that large empire until the siege
of Bhurtpoor iu 1824, where he commanded a
battery of heavy guns ; and from the efficient
manner in which they wore worked, and the exe-
cution done, he was publicly thanked by Lord
Combermere, and also r,ceiveil a medal. Shortly
after this he vas appointed artillery staff oflicL,r
in
• the Neeniuch division, where he remained several
years. He was afterwards appointed superinten-
dent of the foundry at Calcutta ; and it is a curious
as
sy
~veil him
as agtahi no
those
e
fa.,t that most of the guns employed
the enemy during the siege of Dahl,
used by the enemy against us, were cast by him
when holding that appointment; and bear his name.
In 1842, after an absence of twenty-four years, he
visited his native country, and remained here(ijuatbaliutt
two years.. On his return to India, so highly Was
he thought of by the government of the time being,
that he was immediately appointed A
Ge,neral of Artillery, an appointment which he
-
artillery
n
ery
lroldreluinfigtiulistiiiieedliatsttoPtuankjeacuobmwmaarndbrooll out,rtill wafr
in the division of the late lamented of the
Sir Hugh
Wheeler. For his servicm on that occasion he
rec ..ived a seeTnid wed 11. At the conclusion of
that campain again roturi.ed to this country
o year's leave of absence, and visited
haul, near P
totnilelg
siding.
On his sec.l,lllll,gay, 1
returnlvhe rteollwuralsia me at
mne
thenle wasre
appointed command-
ant of artillery in Bcngal, and
was also made Brigadier of Meerut. The gallant
officer proceeded, in fra'.ernal and deservedly corn-
phint'mary terms, to narrate General Wilson's more
recent services, and he stated incidentally that after
one b. tee the general found that five days had
passed without his changing his clothes.

THE LA UNCE OF THE LEVIATHAN.

" A 114eubartic" writes. to a contemporary as
follows :

I have read with great interest your report of the
failure of the launch of the Great Eastern or
Leviathear. It seems clear to ine that it was caused
by a needless and most uncalled for deviation from
the ordinary method of launching ships. Why the
old-fashioned mode of allowing- the cradle to slide
down a well-greased inclined plane, where the
wooden surfaces are prevented from coming in con- -
tact by grease, should have been departed from, is
a question Mr. Brunel is called upon to answer.
From the stuallf st sloop to the largest man-of-war
that has ever been launched, an inclined plane, of
a slope of one foot in twelve, when lubricated with
grease, has always been found to answer and to in-
sure perfect success. The proportional difference
between the bulk and weight of the Leviathan and
the Duke of Wellington is not greater than that
which exists between the largest man-of-war and a
small sloop or cutter. The engineer of the Great
Eastern seams to have sought to immortalise him-
self by a new method. Neglecting altogether a
principle he has made use of most successfully in
one part of his works, he has introduced it into
another in such a manner as to frustrate his
purposes.

- fearful only that his ship should slide down the
ways with too great a velocity, he sought to check
that velocity by bringing ono surface of iron in
contact with another under great pressure. This
was the method Mr. Brunel adopted to chock the
revolution of his great drums, and to hold back the
great Leviathan, and it was successful. Is it not
astonishing that he should have failed to perceive
that upon the same principle his cradles would not
slide down his ways ; that the enormous pressure
even of the resolved portion of the weight of the
Leviathan on her ways would produce such a pres-
sure as not only to prevent the motion of hereradleF,
but even to cause the rails to imbed themselves into
the flat plates of iron at the bottom of the cradles ?

It may be said, however, in answer to this objec-
tion, that the monster ship did move. She did ;
but only when by the premature start, before her
ways were covered with water, the surface of the
rails was thickly covered with blacklead. When
this lubricating material had been washed away by
the rising tide, every effort made to start the ship
down the incline failed to make her budge an inch.
Mr. Brunel is a railway engineer; surely La
must know how absurd is the attempt to diminish
friction when ono surface of iron is brought in con-
tact with another. His rails were not even polished.
The surfaces of the plates of iron whioh formed the
base of the cradles, and which were intended to slide
down the rails, were, as I have been told, roughly
ground on a grindstone. Mr. Brunel has the satis-
faction of determining that a flat iron surface glid-
ing on longitudinal railway rails cannot launch a
ship on an incline of 1 in 12.
In all machinery where it is intended to obviate
friction, as your report truly states, iron is always
made to work in some other metal. Metals of the
same kind are never brought in contact ; the ne-
glect of this established practice has caused the
failure of the launch.

Whether Mr. Brunel waits for the spring tides
of next month, or whether 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. I cannot help regretting that the skilful
builder, who has so admirably done his work in the
construction of the beautiful ship, was not in-
trusted with her launch. I believe he would have
been wise enough to have worked on well-tried
principles. The failure, which every well-wisher
to a great and noble undertaking must regret,
would not have been caused by an engineeriDg
blunder, arising from a neglect of the laws of prac-
tical mechanics.