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

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THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBEi..I? 21, 186 L

THE GREAT EASTERN.

three steamers being examples of different prin-
ciples of construction. Several successful voyages
seemed to save all anxiety in behalf of the Great
Eastern, as was evidenced by a freight of 400 pas-
sengers. For the Persia the case was still stronger,
as she had done Atlantic duty for several years, in
the course of which she had proved herself a swift
and comfortable, as well as a safe, sea boat. The
' City of New York had started on her first voyage.
" Since the sailing days," our contemporary ob-
served, " we have had a succession of severe gales
and heavy weather, sufficient to try the seagoing
qualities of each of thesn, and also still further to
enhance the interest concentrated in their respec-
tive performances.' On Wednesday and Thurs-
day the western shores of Ireland were visited by
( tremendous gales, tremendous seas, and unusual
atmospheric appearances, which prepared one for
the worst. The strongest vessels had been disabled.
However, a steamer arrived with nothing to show
for it blit a brief entry in. her logbook, and, as is the
habit of such a seagoing people as we are, most of
us Clad forgotten that la* week was rougher, than
usual. In the comparison, however, to which we
have referred there was one brief sentence which
forcibly recalled some of the earlier misgivings not
only felt by the public for the Great Eastern, but
most plainly avowed by the promoters and conduc-
tors. It will be remembered that on the trial trips
of the vessel the people in charge were always very
chary of the paddles. While the screw was worked
without stint, it was only under the most auspicious
circumstances that the paddle engine was worked
up to its theoretical poser. The powerful tail of
the fish was trusted, not so its side fins. There were
even reports of altercatiqoss on board ; the paddle and
screw were in different rands ; and, when the screw
had done its utmost, its managers came forward and
said, " Now show us what you can do with your
paddles.". It is very true we were told the paddle•
wheels were as large as the circus at Astley's Am-
phitheatre, and no doubt the engine was a large
one ; still, the big ship appeared to be worked more
as a screw auxiliary than as a full-powered steamer.
The aggreg te power of both paddle and screw was
not in the usual proportiost to the tonnage of the
ship, and the designers had to reason that, as the
superiority to the elements rose in a greater propor-
tion than the size, therefore the motive power need
not rise in equal proportion. However this might
be, the misgivings and the controversy were revived,
we have no doubt, in very many minds by the brief
sentence we have referred to. " The City of New
York," it stated, "is a screw steam-r of 2,560 tons
register, impelled by engines of 550 horse power ;
the Persia is a paddle steamer of 2,079 tons register,
worked by engines of 900-horse power; and the
Great Eastern is a vessel worked by the combination
of screw and paddle, the registered tonnage of
which is 13,676, propelled by engines of 3,000
horse power."
Upon these figures, and assuming that the regis-
tered tonnage represents the work to be done by the
motive power, it follows that the Great Eastern
had, in proportion, only half the power of the
Persia; and that by the'rule of the Persia its horse-
power ought to have been nearly 6,000, instead of
3,000. But this by no means represents the whole
of the inferiority of the Great Eastern as regards
its paddle. The 3,000-horse power was divided be
tween the paddles and the screw, it is needless to
say in what exact proportions. If the paddle engine
was of 2,000-horse power, and the paddlewheels of
a proportionate size and strength, then it would
follow that in proportion to the registered tonnage
the paddles of the Great Eastern would only have
a third of the power of the Persia's. In moderately
good weather such a disproportion would tell only
in the rate of speed. There might, asssome have
proposed, be several pairs of paddles, and in fair
weather the power might possibly be the aggregate
of as many paddles as you could find room for in
the ship's side. But when we come to the case of a
storm—such a storm as we had last Wednesday
week off the coast of Ireland—a new element comes
into consideration—that is, the power cf the wheel
to buffet with the waves, as a swimmer does with
his arms. It is well known that a man who can
easily swim a mile in smooth water may be beaten
very soon in a broken sea or among breakers.
Everybody who has crossed to Boulogne knows the
shocks a paddle may receive from a Channel wave,
and how the whole power of the engine seems to be
tried when, after the paddles have almost risen out
9f the water, they are immediately submerged. In
this conflict with immense solid mountains of water,
coming against the Great Eastern at a relative ve-
locity of 12 to 15 miles an hour, the arms of the
mighty swimmer had, as we have observed, only a
third, if so much, of the power possessed by the
Persia. Nor does this represent the whole of the
weakness of the Great Eastern in this important
point. We believe we are right in saying that the
paddle engines were strongerin proportion than the
paddlewheels, on the calculation that any probable
damage to the paddlewheels would be a less misfor-
tune than the breaking or straining of the engine.
These considerations occurred long ago, but the
friends of the Great Eastern maintained that, even
in the event of a storm, inasmuch as the waves of
the Atlantic never exceed about 23 feet from the
average level, or 45 feet from the trough of the sea,
they would not be formidable to the Great Eastern
in proportion to her size and tonnage. They argued
that the shock of the wave would be at most the
same to a large, ship as to a small one. They thought
even less, inasmuch as the Great Eastern would
ride over them, and would neither pitch nor roll as
much as smaller vessels. The event has shown that
these enterprising people, to whom we all feel very
justly so great a debt of thankfulness, and whose
losses we all commiserate, did not take into account
all the conditions of the case. Believing it to be out
of common rules, they took the exceptions in their
favour, and omitted some against them. It is now
evident that, if a great ship is to have paddles at
all, they must be of a size and strength and motive
power much more in proportion to the tonnage than
those of the Great Eastern.
Another result shows that the Great Eastern must
for the present be considered only a fair weather
ship, or " a floating hotel," as her passengers proudly
called her. She rolls ; in fact, she does roll to an
angle of 45 degrees under sufficient provocation.
By all rules she ought to roll, for she is nothing
more than a flat-bottomed barge, lying on the mud,
with a breadth of 40 feet. It was hoped that the
very great fineness-of her lines and her sharp bows
and stern would make up for the absence of keel.
That hope has been disappointed—at least it has
not stood the test of a disabled ship in the trough
of the sea. With full power, and going ahead, a keel
may be dispensed with ; but when the vessel has to
be brought round, and is wanted to obey the helm
under difficulties, then the fresh-water form of the
ship told its tale in the results. As to the failure of
the rudder-iron and the stern post,that simply shows
that the requisite strength had been undercalcu-
lated. Perhaps also it is a further illustration of the
difficulty found in forging large pieces of iron.
Large pieces of iron are necessarily forged by accu-
mulation, so to speak ; but while the bulk is in-
creased by successive additions, the beating and
Insmnaering of the perpetually new surface injures
the work already done in the interior of the mass.
But we confess we are not surprised to hear of a
rudder-bar ten inches in diameter been broken
under such circumstances.

We have received the following telegram rela
tive to the Great Eastern :

" QUEENSTOWN, SEPT. 20, 11.20.
" The Great Eastern steamer has just arrived in
port to anchor between Spike Island and Carlisle
port. She will shift further in when the tide
slackens. The Edinburgh, screw steamer, did not
go in search of her as reported, but waited ready
to render assistance it required."

(Front the Cork Examiner of Thursday.)
The statement made yesterday that the Great
Eastern was lying between the Forts was erroneous.
She was, in fact, anchored about a mile outside the
Lighthouse, but owing to her enormous bulk, and
the deceptive effect of distance, it appeared from
Queenstown that she was inside, or nearly oppo-
site the Lighthouse, rather than outside it. It
would have been very fortunate if the couple of
miles difference had been decided as was origi-
nally supposed, and that the vessel had really
lay in the harbour's mouth. When she arrived
on Tuesday night it was fair weather, and by the
advice of some parties, whom we do not exactly
know, the captain was induced to remain outside,
lest he might possibly do or receive some damage in
the clark. But next morning it came on to blow
rather strong from the southeast, and what would
have been easy the night before then became very
difficult, and up to the present has been found
impracticable. The injury which disables the
vessel is that to her rudder. Her screw en•
gines and the screw itself are in perfect order,
and she is at present capable of steaming nine and
a half knots a hour. But her rudder-head, nine
inches in diameter, has been completely smashed,
and her steering is dependent upon very imperfect
gear. This consists in a two-inch cable, rove
through a hole made in the blade of the rudder by
a blow of the screw, as mentioned in our account
yesterday, and the action of a temporary gear, fitted
on to a sort of mushroom-shaped head above, which
was designed to bear the chief weight of the rudder,
and so relieve the projection of the keel below. It
was immediately above this pecular apparatus,
which revolves upon rollers in the shape of cannon
balls, that the breakage had taken place. Upon
the mushroom head (we know no better name to
call it) gearing were then fastened to assist in the
steering. The joint power of all was found, how-
ever, quite insufficient to get the rudder over. Every
aid that could be furnished here was placed at the
disposal of those in charge of the ship. H.M. steam
tender Advice stood by her all day ; the Cunard
tender Jackal, and the tugs Robert Bruce and
Willing Mind. The beautiful three-masted revenue
steam yacht Argus, having on board Commander
Yelverton, Inspecting General of Coast Guards, was
also amongst the vessels standing by. Mr. Crichton,
Superintendent of the Cork Steam Company's works,
went on board at an early hour of the day and
remained on board till a late hour at night, in the
hope of being able to render some assistance.
Captain O'Bryen, Harbour Master of Queenstown ;
Mr. Cummins, local agent, and Mr. Grierson,
representative of the Cunard Company, also went
on board. Several attempts were made during
the day to get her into the harbour. When a
favourable moment was thought approaching the
anchors would be lifted, the tugs put into position,
the steering gear strained to its utmost possibility.
Once or twice her head was pointed fair for the
harbour, when the wind caught her huge wall side
and she paid off, and became perfectly unmanage-
able. The four tugs then appeared to have exactly
about as much power upon her as four whale boats
would have had. All that could be done was to
screw her slowly to sea, and after a circuit of some
five or six miles, sometimes more, to bring her back
to somewhat nearly the position she had quitted.
In one of these excursions they feared it would be
quite impossible to turn her at all, so slowly did she
yield to the insufficient steering appliances. What
increases the difficulty of managing her is that she
dares not be reversed, as there is no power to, keep
the rudder straight, and any retrograde motion
would almost certainly drive it back upon the screw
and break one or both. At last all attempts upon
her last night had to be abandoned, and she was
anchored out about five miles distance from the har-
bour's mouth, having been removed so far seaward
to allow her sufficient room in case of her anchors
dragging. To-day the wind had so increased as to
put all attempts for the present out of the question,
at least with the means we possess here. Unless in
calm weather, it would be quite useless to attempt to
get her into the harbour without the aid of at least 4
of the mostpowerful Liverpool tugs. The large Chan-
nel steamers from this port, of which we have scarcely
ever so many available at a time, are scarcely
handy enough for the purpose. That she should
get into the harbour is a matter of absolute neces-
sity, as she could not possibly venture across the
Channel, incapable of steering as she is at present,
and she is not of the size or manageableness to be
trusted to the external steering at sea of even the
most powerful craft. Indeed, to say the truth, the
Great Eastern is at this moment in a most critical
position, and if it comes on to blow much worse
than it did this morning, it would be difficult to
say that she had seen her worst adventure even in
the midst of the Atlantic Ocean. Three or four
days in calm water, however, would enable her
steering apparatus to be so secured as to fit her to
proceed to Milford or Liverpool.
She was visited yesterday by the steamers of the
Citizens' Company, and an opportunity of inspect-
ing her exterior was afforded to large crowds, of a
somewhat venturous disposition. For the sea was
sufficient to make even the Great !Eastern roll so
heavily that communication was nearly cut off
from her. Several of the gentlemen we have named
as having visited her were compelled to remain on
board all night. Only one, Mr. Crichton, was able
to get away, and the difficulty of doing so may be
imagined, when we say that the moment after he
had got into the tug boat, the ladder which he had
quitted was 10 feet above the paddle-box of the tug.
Coming down again upon the paddle-box the ladder
was completely smashed, and Mr. Grierson, who
was standing upon it, had a narrow escape of his
life. Mr. Cotter, the pilot, only succeeded in get-
ting into a whaleboat after a fall into the sea, and
was near being drowned. Another mishap occurred
as the Great Eastern was swinging to her final
anchorage for the night. A fishing smack, which
showed no light, came close up to her, and by the
surge of the sea was jerked up against the boats of
the Great Eastern, tearing away her own bulwarks.
The amount of her damage was not exactly ascer-
tained in the dark, but there was awful consterna-
tion amongst the crew. She was rendered quite
helpless and had to be towed in by the steam ten-
der Advice.

By far the larger portion of the passengers are
still on board the Great Eastern. At first they con-
ceived there was no necessity of quitting her, as they
expected that she would either be able to go at
once into the hat hour or would proceed imme-
diately to Liverpool or Milford. When it was dis-
covered yesterday that neither was probable, it
would then have been difficult, not to say dangerous,
to attempt to put them on board any of the tugs.
To-day it would be quite impossible. All those per-
sons, therefore, are now subjected to very severe
anxiety, not very dissimilar, we presume, from what
they underwent when tossing in the Atlantic.
As yet no representative of the directors of the
Great Eastern has come, nor have any precise
directions, we believe, been given to the captain as
to what he is to do. On the latter point, indeed,
there is perhaps, the less necessity, as he has
no choice but to get into Cork Harbour as
best he can. But the absence of decisive instruc-
tions, or of the presence of any responsible person
to represent the owners, seems pretty much of a
piece with the whole management. Captain Wal-
ker, who is absolutely sacrificing himself to his duty,
never having slept since the occurrence of the disas-
ter, has been placed in a most unfair position. He
had not joined the ship two days before she was
despatched to sea. He has not had the appoint-
ment or selection of a single officer or man on board,
nor was he even acquainted with any of the ship's
officers, except one, the chief. As an instance of the
difficulties with which he had to contend, we un-
derstand the boatswain was yesterday put in irons
for disobedience of orders. Tt.e ship was evidently
sent to sea in the most mischievous haste. Such
cargo as there is, is said to have been very badly
stowed. Berths to an immense number for steerage
passengers were put up before she left, and the
joiners' shaving are still to be seen on the floor!
We do not attempt to account for the disaster, or to
ascribe it to any cause that was avoidable; but the
event has attracted attention to an amount of care•
lessness and mismanagement that appears most ex-
traordinary in a vessel in which care and good
ent would seem to be matters of more than
rnordinaryganaeinnecessity.

To the proprietors we can administer no other
comfort than what we have had to give before.
They are trying a grand experiment, and are the
world's benefactors, but must expect to loose. In
30 years, however, we shall see a dozen Great
Easterns, which will have profited by the disastersi
of the first. It can only be found out by successive
failures
ship
failures how strong the limbs of a mammoth
ought to be, and in what mould she must be cast.
The fabricators of this sea giant seem to. have given
him a sufficient framework, backbone, ribs, and skin.
They must now give him stronger arms, if any at
all, or be content wit
the less speed and greater
safety of a screw. he
result seems to establish that
the usual proportion of horse-power to tonnage can-
not be so largely departed from, and that a vessel
cannot stalk across the Atlantic by mere bulk and
height, and comparatively less power. The necessity
of a keel, and of greater depth for the working of a
sufficient screw, leads to the natural difficulty of
want of harbours and moorage for a craft drawing,
we will suppose, 35 feet of water. Do the natural
conditions of our shores, our inlets, our tides, and
our river mouths prescribe limits to the depth of
our ships ? We cannot think so. The experience
of the last few years seems to prove that we may
make harbours of any depth, and that it is only a
matter of engineering skill to launch a ship of any
size we are likely to want, to moor her in perfect
safety, and, when necessary, to place her in the dry.
But we must consider the results of the Great East-
ern as fatal to the experiment of increasing the size
of ships in all directions but their depth under water.
Not to quit a disappointing subject without a word
of consolation, we must say that the spectacle of the
big ship, after such terrible reverses, steaming back
to harbour at nine knots an hour, having shipped
no more water than was sufficient to swamp the
luggage, and with no further inconvenience than a
little more care at first sailing might have prevented,
proves at least that the Great Eastern, under the
worst Circumstances, is a very safe tub, as she is at

(From the Times.).

Last Wednesday we inserted from a Liverpool
contemporary a comparison of the three superb
steamers which within a few days had left the Mer-
sey for New York, with a remark on the special,
interest felt in their performances, through the

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embark garrison
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Mondayardrit'tshet'sttoe:ter
l :la to jsu
the service companies of the regiment at Corfu. The
detachment will coesist of 23 rank and file. .The
Himalaya also takes Royal Engineers to Gibraltar
and Malta.
The first section of the Salamis, 4, building in
4d. No. 1 slip, was raised this day.
The funnel of the Rattlesnake, 21, was yesterday
-----
'n hoisted into position from the maiayard of the
d has
Wellesley, guard-ship, and the Rattlesnake has
`ern been towed to her old position alongside the Glen-
cester.
The Bombay, 81, screw, now lying at Folly-
point, in the Medway, is rapidly approaching com-
pletion. She has a large number of dockyard hands
on board engaged upon her interior fitments. She
has completed the shipment of her water-tanks,
which were brought from Deptford in the victual-
ling-hey Lion. The Bombay will shortly be ready
for her trial trip.
The screw steamer Renown, 89, Captain Arthur
Forbes, having been relieved of her masts alongside
the sheer hulk in Hamoaze, was replaced yesterday
forenoon alongside the Devonport dockyard, to re-
turn the remainder of her stores.
The Hon. Robert Dandas, Storekeeper-General
of the Navy, is now on a visit of inspection at the
Devonport dockyard. His attention appears to be
specially directed to those departments from which.
so much public property has been recently purloined.
The following appointments were made yesters
day at the Admiralty :—Lieut. Henry F. Stephen-
son, to the Emerald, and Lieut. W. T. F. Mudge,
to the Pelican.
The first important trial at Portsmouth of the
method adopted by the Ship Ventilating Committee
for improving the ventilation of her Majesty's ships
has been brought to a conclusion at Portsmouth on
board the gunboat Handy, preparing for service on
the West Coast of Africa, and^which has been fitted
on the plan recommended by the cotnmittee. The
system Was tested by getting up steam and keepin g
the engines going at full speed for three hours,
when a certain temperature was gained. The ven-
tilators were then opened, the engines still going
at the same speed, and the temperature reduced in
the engine and boiler room and stokehole 28 deg.,
and in the forecastle 131 deg.

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PRICE 4d.
STAMPED sd

dozens of ships pass through every year,
and has
barely escaped with her life.
We have always thought that the Great Eastern
had the single property of being a huge ship, and
that in that, her very supposed excellence, she was
and is a huge mistake. There is in all things a
maximum fixed by the laws of nature—a point up to
which you gain advantage in proportion to magnitude
beyond which the inconveniences attending magni-
tude begin to outweigh, and ultimately crush out all
its advautages. This seems to be the mistake into
which Mr. Brunel fell when, having made the
widest end grandest rail way in the world, he be-
came also ambitious of bring remembered as the
designer of the biggest ship in the world. It had,
no doubt, been found long before Mr. Brunet's
time, that as steam boats were increased in size,
with, of course, proportionate increase of steam
power, so they increased in speed and in general nau-
tical sefety and convenience. By what law this in-
crease of advantage was governed was, we believe,
never reduced to any certain mathematical formula.
In general, engineers and ship builders are comet)!
to act practically upon their observations of facts,
and, so long as they do so, advancing step by step,
profiting by an unknown law, with caution, they do
well. For 20 years before the Great Eastern was
thought of the builders of steam boats had been
gradually, and only gradually, increasing the size
of vessels. They reasoned correctly, that if a ship
of 1,000 tons showed great advantages over one of
800, you might fairly expect increase of advantage
from 1,200 tons; and so they had crept on till, from
the comparatively little boats of 1825 to 1833, with
speeds of eight and nine miles an hour, they had
advanced to the magnificent ships of the Peninsular
and other mail companies, with their speeds of
from 12 to 15 miles an hour and more. But it did
not follow that because a ship of 1,200 tons was
three times as effective as one of 400, and a ship of
2,000 tons still more effective, there was no limit
to the operation of the law, and that a ship of up.
wards of 20,000 tons must be proportionately effec-
tive. Some such fallacious reasoning must, how-
ever, have been in Mr. Brunel's mind when he at once
made the enormous leap from the 2,000 tons ship
to the calibre of the Great Eastern. Of course it is
easier now, with the light thrown on the subject by
the unfortunate experience of the Great Eastern,
than it was when she was planned, to see wLat are
at least some of her defects, and to see some of the
causes of her failing to fulfil the hopes she gave.
We see now that when you reach beyond a certain
magnitude in the construction of bodies containing
moving parts, and intended to battle against
enormous mechanical forces, though you may
make perhaps the foundation, the framework, as
it were, of the moving parts, strong enough to
resist almost anything, you cannot do so with
the smaller moving parts, unless you run into
an excess of size and weight which will make them
unwieldy. You are perpetually battling between
the necessary strength and the necessary
activity. This is obviously the secret of the Great
Eastern's accident. Her paddle wheels are neces-
sarily gigantic; if they were strong in proportion
to the strict rule of necessity, considering the sur-
faces they expose and the strains that may come
upon them, they would consume more power to
turn them than is at disposal. If they are, com-
paratively speaking, light, they smash readily
under a heavy sea. The rudder and the paddle
wheels have been the sinners in this particular s cci-
dent. Some other moving part would have been
so, if exposed to similar shocks and strains.
Again, it was the gigantic size of the ship that ren-
dered paddle wheels necessary at all. Paddle wheels
are excluded from large ocean steam ships because of
the difficulty of making them light enough to work
well, and yet strong enough to stand the shock of
heavy seas. But the Great Eastern, because of her
size, could not do without them. There were insur-
mountable objections of a practical nature to
working so big a ship with screws only. We have
thus before us the proofs that some of her unavoid-
able defects arose from her excessive bigness and
nothing else ; and we have little doubt that were
her whole apparel.' to be minutely scrutinised by
a scientific and reflective mind, it would be found
that throughout her bigness weighs upon her amd
destroys the advantages hitherto attributed to size.
As regards her commercial capabilities, her size is
again her curse. Whatever may be the state of
society and of travelling a generation hence, we, of
course, cannot foresee; but at present it is quite
plain that, though quite enough of oargo and pas-
sengers goes to and fro in the course of a year to
freight even such a ship as the Great Eastern, it is
equally clear that no such cargo is ever to be col-
lected, all wanting to go at the same time, and
hence the Great Eastern does travel, and must
for many years to come, travel comparatively
empty. Of the fallacy of the notion of a ship cap-
able of being handled at all, and yet big enough
to lie at its full length on the tops of succes-
sive waves so as to set the force of the ocean waves
at nought, it is needless to theorise. Even the giant
ship has been now shown to be in practice but a
helpless infant in the arms of the old Sea. We are,
as probably most people will be, sorry to see that the
career of so magnificent a ship should so little realise
men's hopes of her. But we trust that the experience
of her failure will teach shipbuilders that until
much more scientific knowledge is brought to bear
than seems as yet to be possessed by anybody, they
had better fall back upon their old system of
advancing step by step, and not jump to the con-
clusion that the advantages of mere magnitude are
without limit.