The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TIM PUBLIC JOUNALS.

THE ATTEMPT TO LAUNCH THE GREAT

EASTERN.
(Prom the Times.)
The consummate engineer must possess not ouly
grandeur of ideas, but accuracy of execution. His
eye must be microsc vie as well as telescopic,
and as fitted to inspect a mite as to comprehend
the heavens. The higher his aspirations and the
more daring his plans, the firmer grasp must he
have of every detail, and the surer must be his
footfall at every step. If there is nothing too
great for him to adventure, it is because there

is nothing too little for him to care for. The
case of the mon,t tr. ship which it was yesterday
attempted to Launch at LunehousJ is a proof
of this. Th 3 greatest and m )st wonderful of
modern constructions is complete, and only waits
for a tit machinery to move it from the place
where for four years it has been the admira- -
tion of the world. Yet, until cables and drums
and breaks are made to do their work, it must re-
main stranded and unable to realise the fond hopes
of its projectors.
The Leviathan," as we believe it is now called,
is one of those gigantic conceptions which we owe
to the genius of these latter days. Within the last
30 years practical science has altered the face of the
globe and changed the destinies of nations, It is
now almost commonplace to dwell on the steamboat,
the radway, and the telegraph, or to remark that
we •in a wonderful age—an age of enlightenment
and progress. But we may take the last 10 years,
and, from a consideration of what has been done,
deduce the fact that boldnes, perseverance, and
skill are working greater prodigies than ever. In
this country we are in t'uta midst of the movement.
The most rrAemorabit vieiimatific enterprises of late
years have been
41:40 nritannia-bridge the Subma-
rine Telegrapt-m.
and Syde-'4l the Crystal Palaces of Hyde-park
wonder" ' '
"'in the Atlantic Telegraph, and the
.ra ship which was for the first time moved
es+.,erday. All these have been carried out here,
At& we have learned from them to interest ourselves

deeply in the progress of important works. The
" big ship" has been for the last year or two the
great topic of interest in our island of Cyclops.
Here was a work by the side of which all the
achievements of former times would be diminished
to nothing. The world had been of late accustomed
to large-sized vessels, but this was great with a
greatness out ofall comparison with its predecessors.
Former competition only looked to an increase of a
few hundred tons. The Cunard line and the Collins
line were content if they alternately eu7did their
rivals by 20 feet of length or an extra half knot in
the hour of pace. But the new ship disdained com-
parison. Her principle was new, her size was new, she
would be propelled.by a union of powers never before
joined, she would enter the water in a new man-
ner, she would necessitate anew system of business
to sail her at a profit, she might even be expected
to call new towns into existence on the shores of
harbours sufficierel6 to shelter her. The longest
steamer in existence is less than 400 feet ; the new
ship is 680 fees ; the principal saloons form a suite
400 feet lone!, ; the burden is nearly 23,000 tons—
nearly five times that of any vessel afloat. The
nominal horse-power of the screw engines is 1,600
horee,e, that of the paddles 1,000 horses. She car-
ries, two steam-propelled boats, each as large as a
good sized Thames steamer. She is to carry 4,000
passengers, and, should it be necessary, could con-
vey 10,C00 troops to India in little more than a
month. It cannot be w. otdered, then, that we have
all been interested in the great work, and taken a
patriotic pride in it ; that many of us have been to
see it, have looked at it from land and water, ad-
mired its sharpness and cleanness of build, gazed
down from its lofty sides to the ground, some sixty
feet beneath, wandered over its decks while the
whole fabric resounded with the clang of metal, and
have returned home to expatiate on it as one of
the few sights which have not been exaggerated by
report.
The public must, therefore, naturally feel disap-
pointed that for a month at least the launch must
be postponed. The ship has moved for about four
feet, and that is all. It would seem that the im-
mense mass was allowed to stir too suddenly, and
was then brought up with a jerk. The consequence
was that she stuck feat, and has remained sticking.
Yet the evil is certainly much less than if it had
burst from all restraint, and the whole bulk had
rushed downward to the Thames. Happily, the
breaks were sufficiently powerful and the chains
sufficiently strong to prevent such a calamity. Se
we may hope that the defect will be remedied by
this day month, and that the close of the year
will see the " Leviathan " introduced to the
deep. "The present failure may certainly 'neve
tried the patience at tko, distingnlnhecl visitors,
though they cannot have anticipated anything eery
exciting from a gradual motion which was to last
two days and a night. Like the Atlantic Telegraph
the great ship must look for success to a second
trial. We seem to have been a little unfortunate
in our ngrandiuse schemes of late. The Valentia
cable hastpajted, "Big Ben" has cracked, and now
the " Leivinthen " will not budge. If we add to
these then dollapse of that elaborate structure the
Sepoy army, we have a pretty good list of failures
for 1857. However, when the strong man sees an
obstacle he feels that he is on the threshold of an
achievement. The breaking of the cable in the
Atlantic will doubtless lead to inventions that will
enable us to lay cables everywhere. The stoppage
of the great ship on her ways will teach us how to
launch dozens of great ships in future. In these
things we confess to being optimists. The most
dangerous part is that of a prophet prophesying
negatives. It is not so long ago that locomotives
were pronounced ale audit ies, and the Electric Tele-
graph was looked upon as an i igenious toy. Every
succeeding triumph of marine architecture has been
lookedupon ei h mistrust,which seccesshascontine.
ally dissipated. The Great Western, the Great BO
taro, and the Himalaya, have one after another
ceuiel the wise and cautioustoshaketheir heaels. The
great ship, we hope and believe, is destined to a
pro-perous career, and to be the model for many
another giant of the seas. Nay, we can foresee a
day when its primacy will have vanished, and when
it will bo rem-mb 'red as a meritorious work of
original conception, but surpassed by the subse-
quent progieis of science.
However, we have now to do with to-dey, and
we cannot but congretulate the public on the
completion of this stupendous work. India in
four weeks, Australia in five—these are wo de
of good om--n to the world ! How all the deeds
of war and diplomacy sink into insignificance
compared with the effect, pr educed by the progress
Of science ! Here is the world brought together
and its peacs secured by th© application of
mechanical laws, while the great and the god, and
the noble and ie powerful, have been trying in
vain nr,ral:ty and reasoning, negotiation and
treaties, age upon age. We may well rejoice at
1111 Ch an event as the launch of this vast structure,
and we have little doubt that we shall shortly re-
joice at it. Putting aside the gain to commerce and
civilization, it is plain that the result must be to
Strengthen and consolidate this widely and ex-
tended empire. It has always been objected to the
British dominions that they lie scattered over the
globe, too far from the mother country and from
each other to be useful in peace or secure in war.
Thus India was in flames for weeks before we knew
it and for months before we could remedy it. Tti us
the Ceffre or the Maori may count upon his term
of unpunished lawlessness. In a war wi,h Euro-
pean countrie.s or with a combin t.tiou of European
countries, still further evils might be apprehendel.
But with the progress of science the world is be-
coming smaller and our dependencies more easily
managed. Time and mind are working for us.
This Indian revolt would have been a more
terrible affair even ten years back, when ocean
steamers and clippers were few. In a few years
hence we may count on having made a correspond-
ing advance. With a telegraph stretching west-
ward to Newfoundland, ataleastward to India and
Australia ; with " Leviathens" to carry our troops
by sea, and railways to forward them by land, we
-may reckon on holding our own in quiet and
security.
To affirm that the spirit of the present age is
' exclusively mechanical would be a gross exaggera-
tion, bntits dominancy cannot be denied. In au in-
dustrialand commercial country the aim always is t )
obtain a maximum of result from the application of
the minimum of power. Bysuch processes produc-
tion is increaties,whilelab.
century our economised. Dur-
ing the presentthis
titrinciple has been mote
and more reduced into practice.
has been improved ;,streetsPr ice.d
the
he steam-engine
interior of fac-
t
riee and private dwellits/shaayne een illuminat -d by
gas ; the electric telegraph has been invented, uniting
islands and continents ; while railways have con
quered time and distance. In naval architecture
pp
our advances have been prodigious. The clipper
ship, screw__ with or without the auxiliary screw tit
-e screw
itself, almost superseding the paddle-wheel, which it
certainly
will do to vessels ofi war—and the increased
tonnage of our
mereanti e marine, prove that
mechanical genius has been as active on the ocean as
on the laud. Tue West Indian, the Canard, and the
fleets
Peninsular and Oriental steam were once
thought to have exhibited colossal dimensions-never
to be surpassed ; but they "hide their diminis.
ofhed
heads" before the Great Eastern, the launch
which commenced yesterday. With all the details
of this monster specimen of naval architecture our
readers are familiar, the whole having born explain( d
by its builder, Mr. Scott Russell,
at the scientific
congress recently held in Dublin, the proceedings of
which were copiously reported in our columns- We
may, however, upon this occasion, remind the public
that she is of the gigantic burthen of 22,000 tons,
that her paddles are_ as large in their circurnfer-