The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-03 00:00:00

COMMENCEMENT OF THE LAUNCH

OF THE
GREAT EASTERN STEAM-SHIP.

This morning the preparations for launching this most
stupendous and magnificent specimen of naval architec-
ture were commenced in the presence of thousands of
spectators. From an early hour in the morning immense
numbers of persons arrived by the Blackwell Railway,
and the most intense interest was manifested to obtain
a sight of so novel and interesting a character. The
banks of the Thames opposite Mill wall were thronged ;
but owing to the haziness of the atmosphere very little,
we should imagine, could be seen from such a position.
Those parties fortunate enough to obtain tickets had
their comforts, as far as possible (owing to the shortness
of time at which the launch was fixed), sedulously at-
tended to. The present launch differed from all pre-
ceding ones, and the ♦e,sel, instead of entering her
native element in the usual manner, was drawn into the
water " broadside on."

The whole of the arrangements were under the direc-
tion of Mr. Brunel, and the following is the plan
adopted :—Two launching " ways," or large and power-
fully-built tramways, have been constructed by the rail-
way contractors, Messrs. Treadwell and Co., running
from under the fore and after portions of the vessel
down into the river at low water spring tide mark.
Each of these " ways" is 300 feet long by 120 wide,
and the distance between the two is also about 120
feet. To guard against the shifting nature of the river
mud both the " ways " are constructed with unusual
solidity and strength. The foundation of each is formed
upon seven rows of piles, the four outside rows being
driven at three feet intervals, and the three inner rows
at six feet. These piles are all forced home to the
gravel of the river bed, so that they graduate from a
length of 32 feet under the ship's bottom to 10 feet
at the low water mai k. To both sides of the heads of
the rows of piles strong timbers, 12 inches by 12 inches,
are securely bolted, and the whole area of the " way"
covered with concrete to a thickness of two feet. Above
the concrete longitudinal timbers of great strength are
secured at-intervals of three feet six inches from centre
to centre i and run the entire length of the " way," Over
these again are placed transverse timbers of the
same solidity, but only three feet thick, which are
bolted together and again bolted down the wailings
to keep theta fixed under the pressure they will have to
bear and prevent them floating at high tide. On these
transverse timbers, but running straight from the vesse►
to the water's edge, are screwed railway metals at in-
tervals of 13 inches apart. They are the ordinary solid
bridge rails used by Mr. Brunel on the permanent way
of the Great Western Railway, and are, of course, of
the strongest kind. The rails complete the " ways,"
which, thus resting on a bed of piles and concrete, form,
as it were, a massive road of crossed and recrossed tim-
bers stretching from under the Great Eastern to low
water mark at an inclination of lin 12. Down the rail-
way metals on these " ways," thee, the ship will be
slowly lowered into the water on cradles, constructed
under her• The cradles are the same width as the
" ways" over which they are to run. They are made
of !arge balks of timber, wedged and driven in so as to
fit perfectly the bottom of the ship fore and aft. The
timbers are principally laid ath wart-ships with longitu-
dinal beams and shores fastened to the outer sides. All
are firmly bound together with iron bolts, and loaded
with iron ballast to prevent them floating when the title
takes the vessel off. The bottom of the cradle consists
of iron bars seven inches wide and an inch thick,
placed at intervals of one foot apart, and with their edges
carefully rounded off, so as to offer no resistance to toe
railway metals of the " ways" down which they will have
to pass. The process of launching, therefore, consisted
in lowering these cradles with the vessel on them slowly
over the " ways." As a matter of course, if the monster
were left to itself, the instant the shores were knocked
away it would rush down the ways and very probably
strand itself on the opposite side of the river. To pre-
vent this catastrophe, massive chains were fastened to
the cradles, which were passed through double sheaves
secured to clumps of piles driven 35 feet into the solid
earth.

The principal dimensions of the ship, capacity, and
power of the Great Eastern are as follows :

Length, 680 feet.
Breadth, 83 feet.
Depth from deck to keel, 51 feet.
Aggregate length of principal saloons, 400 feet.
Height of ditto, 15 feet.
Number of decks, 4.
Tonnage, 25,600 tons.
Carries of coals and cargo, 18,000 tons.
Nominal horse-power, screw, 1,600 horses.
Ditto paddles, 1,0.0 horses.
Cylinders of screw engines, 4.
Diameter of cylinder, 84 inches.
Length of stroke, 4 feet.
Cylinders of pada'. engines, 4 feet.
Diameter of cylinder, 74 inches.
Length of stroke, 14 feet 6 inches.
- Draft of water (loaded), 28 feet; do. (light), 18 ft.
The actual weight of the ship, engines, and various
fittings, are as follows : TONS.

Ship
Timber work, fittings, &c.
Masts, rigging, and sails
Anchors, chains, &c 3OO
Paddle engines complete
Boilers to ditto (full)
Screw engines complete 607
Boilers to ditto (full) 632
Paddle-wheels lB5
Paddle-bones and sponson beams
Sciew, shaft, and bearings
Screw propeller

Total 12,375

Her deck is flush except for cabin entrances and
similar purposes, so that a promenade more than twice
the length of the Great Britain's deck is available for
the passengers.

The floor of the ship is perfectly flat, the keel being
turned inwards and rivetted to the inner ship's keel.
These several skins are joined to each other by longi-
tudinal webs or girders, formed of plate and angle iron.
There are 17 of these webs on each side of the ship,
which run the entire leegth of the vessel, and they are
placed at such distances as to extend upward, at inter-
vals of about three feet front the keel to the maindeek,
and they are again closed up in lengths varying from 20
to 60 feet. Thus the outer and inner ships are joined
together by means of a great number of water-tight webs
or cells of extraordinary strength, giving the vessel a
rigidity such as has never been communicated to a ship
before. The main deck is treated in the same manner
for a width of 20 feet on each side, and iron girders bind
one side to the other, so that the entire vessel becomes,
as it were, a beam of strength, and the whole fabric may
be denominated a web of woven iron, the rivets forming
the fastenings, and the webbed or honey-comb cells be-
coming an indissoluble structure. The compartments
between the outer and inner skin will hold 3,000 tons
of water ballast, should it be required. The web plates
are of inch iron, and the outer and inner skins are of
three-quarter inch iron.
Each of the small first-class cabins is 14 feet by 101,
and 71 feet high. The largest are 15 feet by 11, and
7i high. There are whole streets and squares of such
apartments as these, opening out into saloons, which of
themselves afford as much space as the main deck of a
line-of-battle ship of the present day.
She has 20 ports on the lower deck, each five feet
square, to receive railway waggons. She has also GO
ports on each side, 2 feet 6 inches square, fur ventilation,
and an abundance of dead lights. The lower ports are
16 feet above the water when the ship is loaded.
The bulwarks are 9 feet 6 inches high forward, and
slope down to above 5 feet high amidships and aft. The
massive wrought iron deck is covered with teak plank-
iog, placed about 6 inches distance from the iron. The
engines are, beyond all doubt, the largest and most
powerful by some thousands of horse power that have
ever yet been constructed, and some of the largest pieces
of wrought iron that have ever been forged and the
largest castings that have ever been run in one casting,
are used in their manufacture.

The paddle engines consist of four oscillating cylinders
of 74 inches diameter and of 14 feet stroke, working in
a solid frame attached to the frame of the ship. Each
pair of cylinders, with its crank, condenser, and air
pump, forms is itself a complete and separate engine,
and each of the four cylinders is constructed so as to per-
mit instant disconnection, if required, from the other
three ; so that the whole form a combination of 4 engines
complete in themselves, whether worked together or
separately. The two cranks are connected by a friction
clutch, so that the two pairs of engines can be connected
or disconnected at a moment's warning and by a single
movement of the band. The engines are provided with
expansion valves, throttle valves, and governors, all con-
structed on the most improved principles and arranged
for working in the most efficient manner. The e
billed paddle engines will work up to an indicator power
of 3,000 horses of 33,0001 b. when working 11 strokes per
minute, with steam in the boiler at 151 b. upon the inch,
and the expansion valve cutting off at one-third of
the stroke. But all the parts of the engines are so
constructed and proportioned that they will work
safety and smoothly at 8 strokes per mionte with th,
team at 251 b. aud !nil on without expansion (beyond
what is unavoidably effected by the slide-), or at 16
strokes per minute, with the steam in the boiler still at
251 h., and the expansion valve cutting off at one-fourth
of the stroke. Under these last named circumstances
the paddle engines alone will give a power of about

5,000 horses. Tue paddle %oilers are of wrought plate
iron, with brass horizontal tlbes, and are adapted for
working regularly at a pregure of 251 b., though they
are perfectly safe at 601 b., a, they have all been tested
with an hydraulic pump toa great pressure. These
paddle boilers are in two distract sets, and each set has
about 8,000 square feet of tubemrface, exclusive of flue
mad furnace, and about 400 sqtare feet of fira bar fur-
nace. Each set are equal to supply, with steady, mo-
derate firing, steam for an indicate: of 1,800-horse power,
though with full firing each set cf two gives steam to
the amount of 2,500-horse power, o• 5,000-horse power
in all.

Two auxiliary high-pressure conensing engines are
fixed adjacent to the paddle engines for working pumps
and other necessary work of the ship. These two en-
gines together are equal to 60-horse power when work-
ing at 401 b., though, as they are made to work at 601 b.,
their power can be doubled if necessary.
The screw engines consist of four cylinders of 84 inches
diameter and four feet stroke, working horizontally. As
with the paddle cylinders, each of the four is in itself a
complete and separate engine, capable of working quite
independently of any of the other three. They work up
to an indicator power of 4,500 horses of 33,0001 b. when
working at 45 strokes a minute, with steam in the boiler
at 151 b., and the expansion valve cutting off at one-third
of the stroke. They are, however, made to work
smoothly either at 40 strokes per minute, with steam at
251 b., without expansion, or at 55 strokes a minute with
the expansion cutting off at one-fourth of the stroke.
Under these circumstances they will be working at the
tremendous power of 6,500 horses. The boilers are of
the same kind as the paddle boilers, only ten in number.
Connected with the screw engines are two auxiliary
high pressure engines of 70 horse power, working with
401 b., but these, as with the other auxiliary engines, are
made to work at 601 b. Both these, besides doing ordi-
nary ship's work, are connected with the screw shaft
abaft the ordinary disconnecting apparatus, so as to
enable them to drive the screw if necessary, when discon,
nected from its main engine. It will thus be seen that the
paddle and screw engines, when working together at
their highest power, will exert an effective force of not
lees than 11,500 1,-raw power. or sufficient to raise
200,000 gallons of water to the top of the Monument in
less than one minute, or to drive the machinery of all
the cotton mills in Manchester.

The consumption of coal to produce this amount of
locomotive force is estimated at about 250 tons per day.
All the other details connected with the ship are on the
same colossal scale. For instance, she will have four of
Trotman's anchors, each weighing 7 tons, and two small
anchors of 5i tons, at the forward part of the ship. At
the stern there will be two anchors of 6 tons each.
The chain cables are likewise en suite. There will be
two forward of 2-inch diameter (about 601 b. the link)
and two of 2i inch diameter. In the after-part there
will be two of 2i inch, and each cable will be 140 fa-
thoms long. The total number of crew will be 400, of
which one-third will belong to the engineering depart-
ment, one-third for victualling and servants, and one-
third Ulf, sailing department.

At half-past twelve o'clock the necessary arrangements
having been completed, the signal was given for the
commencement of operations, and shortly before
one the immense ♦essel moved forward be•
tween six and seven feet amidst the cheers
of the vast assemblage. At the time our report left
(past 2 o'clock) the ship had not moved further, but
everything was going on to the satisfaction of Mr.
Brunel.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.--knis Day.)

COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH.

(Sittings in Banco, before Lord Campbell, Justices
Coleridge, Wightman, and Erle.)
IX PARTE GREENWOOD.

This was an application to the Court of considerable
importance in connection with the insolvent laws, as to
the power of a creditor to present an insolvent's petition
for hearing independent of the insolvent himself. It ap-
peared that a creditor bad presented an insolvent's peti•
tion to the York County Court for hearing, but Mr.
Sergeant Dowling, the judge of that court, refused to
bear the petition, on the ground that by the Act of Par.
'lament the petition must be filed by the insolvent hica•
self,
The Court, after bearing Mr. Knowles, Q.C.,
part of the judge, and Mr. M'Coubrey, for the applica•
tion, took time to consider their judgment. on the

COURT OF COMMON PLEAS.
(Sittings in Banco, before Lord Chief Justice Cock•
burn, Justices Williams, Crowder, and Wines.)
Mrs, Cobbett renewed her application, this morning,
to the Coca, on an amended affidavit, for a habeas par.
pus to bring up her husband for his discharge, on the
ground of his wrong detention, the sheriff having refused
to obey the Queen's writ in moving him from one prison
to another.

The court refused the application, on the ground that
Mr. Cobbett Ead refused to pay the half guinea fee re-
quired by act of parliament on his transference from the
sheriff's prison to the Queues prison.