The Sun.
London, England, 1861-09-21 00:00:00

least a very good packet for a summer's trip across
the Atlantic.

(From the Morning Post.)
There can be no doubt that the disaster of the
Great Eastern admits of a probably true explana•
tion by no means prejudicial to the principle of
shipbuilding on so vast a scale. The parties in-
terested in the reputation of the vessel itself have
offered a very different explanation, equally cal-
culated no doubt to favour the construction of such
ships for the future, but, as we think, quite illu-
sive. They have told us that "itis a mercy" that
no other ship was subjected to such a gale. In
other words, the Great Eastern was the only ship to
experience this gale in its full force ; and any other
ship in such a trial must inevitably have gone
down. Now, no one surely can credit this. such
gales as those of September, 1861, must be-
fore this have been experienced and survived.
And although it is alleged, with some plausi-
bility, that the hurricane which swept over the
Great Eastern was in a certain sense partial,
it can hardly be doubted that other ships expe-
rienced this very gale in similar knee. .The Persia
met the Great Eastern while still in *cry heavy
sea; but the Persia sailed from Liverpool some
four days later; and it is very possible that she may
not have been subjected to the same trial. It is
remarked that the i'ersia rode the gale exceedingly
well. But the steamer which has just arrivedfrom
America, and bears the intelligence of the Empe-
ror Alexander's eccentric advice to President Lin-
coln, must have been in precisely the same circum-
stances, for she must have been in the track of this
very gale which swept over and disabled the Great
Eastern. It seems, therefore, quite impossible to
regard this terrible hurricane as one of exceptional
and unprecedented fury.

But the Great Eastern itself was an experiment
in naval architecture. Such a thing as a ship of
twenty-two thousand tons burthen was never be-
fore imagined. It is not verymany years since the
Great Britain was herself regarded as an experi-
ment also. Yet her tonnage was only three thou-
sand five hundred. Naval officers said that a ship
three hundred and twenty-three feet in length vs as
of very doubtful safety, and that very probably sire
would break her back in a heavy sea. Since that
time, however, longer vessels have been built eve❑
in the royal navy ; and professional opinion has
altogether changed. But a ship like the Great
Eastern, nearly seven hundred feet long, was more
experimental than ever. One thing was acknow-
ledged at the time of her construction, and was
afterwards proved by her previous disaster. She
was, generally speaking, of extraordinary strength.
B.—, though her sides and other parts of the vessel
may fully bear out this view, it is quite possible
that other parts may not have been proportionally
strong. The Great Eastern, we have said, was an
experiment ; and if the ship, viewed as a whole,
was experimental, the degree of force and strength
to be adapted in the machinery and in other parts of
the vessels to such an enormous hull may fairly be
regarded as experimental also. Steam-ships of the
hulk of the Himalaya had answered perfectly well ;
there had been a symmetrical adaptation of every
force in the ship. But when a vessel four or five
times the bulk of the Himalaya came to be built,
it was obviously a question for engineers and naval
architects in what degree the engines should be in-
creased in power, in what degree the paddles should
be increased in bulk and capacity of resistance, and
so on. This, we say, was more or less matter of
doubt and speculation. The direct proportion was
readily attainable by arithmetical computation ;
but was the .direct proportion the one to be fol-
lowed ? Were the paddles to be four or five times
larger and stronger than the paddles of the Hima-
laya just because the tonnage of the ship was four
or five times greater ? On the other hand, were
not the paddles of the one exposed to just the same
sea powers as the paddies of the other; and this
being the case, ought the ratio of tonnage to be the
precise ratio of paddle strength ? Thus we can
conceive a great variety of questions arising, to
which the answers must be that such a proposition
is more plausible than another, but that the build-
ing and adaptation of such a ship must be an ex-
periment at last.

Now, it is particularly in the paddles that the
Great Eastern has broken down. It is said that the
paddle on the windward side was first bent, and
then that it broke away. The paddle on the lee-
ward side afterwards broke away also. As soon as
this accident had happened it seemed to be the
better opinion on board that these paddles were
not of sufficient strength. This conclusion in-
volved no mere truism; for there remained the
question whether more powerful paddles would
have been manageable, and whether more power-
ful ones would have saved them from being
twisted and broken off by the force of the waves.
Were not the paddles, it may be asked, of the Persia
or the Canada of less bulk ? If they would not
have given way, can the explanation lie in the
strength of the paddles ? But to this it may be
answered that there is probably a strain from the
ship as well as from the waves, and that, if this be
the case, we have to consider the effect of a strain
from a ship of twenty-two thousand tons as distin-
guished from the strain of the sea itself. A simi-
lar consideration may be applied to the question
of the snapping of the rudder-post, though it
seems to have been of enormous strength. There
is therefore a fair question for engineers and naval
architects to determine—whether the steam and
rudder apparatus were really strong in pro-
portion to the requirements of such a ship. It
is much more easy to ascribe the disaster to some
special agency of this sort than to the general cha-
racter of the ship. The engines sustained no injury,
and the hull itself remains, it is believed, uninjured
also. When we attempt such a novelty as a ship
nearly double the length and four or five times the
tonnage of any other on the water, we cannot he
confident that we have succeeded in hitting the
precise proportion which one part of an elaborate
machinery should bear to another. It is said
that the Great Eastern did not answer her helm
well. Probably a very long vessel will not so
readily do so as a shorter one, but it has not
been made out that this was the case until
the accident happened to the windward paddle-.
wheel. We acknowledge that it would at present
be somewhat premature to express a confident opi-
nion, but we do not see anything in the statements
that we have as yet been able to publish which
should detract from the future efficiency of such
ships as the Great Eastern. We see clearly enough
that the shareholders are engaged in an expensive
experiment ; but we looked upon them from the
first as an adventurous and experimental class of
men, who were prepared to do anything for the
public good, to spend their money in improving
the art of ship-building, and to be perfectly con-
tent with "speculation" in a scientific instead of
" speculation" in a monetary sense. We have little
doubt that they will in time produce a perfect
ship, but meanwhile they must be prepared to
pay for it.

(From the .Morning Herald.)

The ancient nations whom we designate as
heathens, had, in some things, a far greater in-
tensity of religious feeling than is generally mani-
fested by us, the Christian nations of this day. If
they believed in false gods, at least they believed in
them heartily ; and they believed that the curse of,
their Providence, which they called " Fortune, '
would follow those who set themselves up as above
it. "It bath been noted," says Lord Bacon, referring
to many instances of antiquity, " that those who
ascribe openly too much to their own wisdom and
policy are unfortunate. Itis written that
Timotheus the Athenian, after he had, in the
account he gave to the state of his government,
often interlaced this speech, And in this For-
Nile had do part,' never prospered in anything
be undertook afterwards. Had the Great Eastern
been a Greek ship, looking at the presump-
tuous boasts with which she was ushered into the
world, as though she should defy and set at nought
all the terrors of the " Ocean old, strong as youth,
and as uncontrolled," there can be little doubt that
she would have been looked upon US a thing accursed
by Fortune, for the presumption with which she had
der ed the goddess,
We will not stop now to inquire whether that
mystic law in which the Greeks believed prevails
under our dispensation. That is a question of pure
theology, on which we are well aware that, even
among ecclesiastical theologians, and still more
among lay theologians, considerable differences of
opinion prevail, and ours is not a theological journal.
But we may at least, using a sailor's expres-
sion, pronounce the Great Eastern an "un-
lucky ship. She was heralded by promises
of attaining a speed almost fabulous. Well,
so far from realising them, she has never reached the
speed of many of the Peninsular and Oriental and
other large sized steam ships. She was promised
immunity from the effect of great seas. Well, she
has never yet even tried any heavier seas than the
Atlantic, which are mere child's play as compared
with the seas off the Cape and round the Horn, and
yet she has literally broken down in a storm such as