The Sun.
London, England, 1857-09-01 00:00:00

TELL Bid

IIATION.

The following interesting paper was read on
Friday :

TEM` "GREAT EASTERN" STEAMSHIP.
Mr, J. Scott Russell laid before section G some of the
mechanical details of the construction of the great ship
now building at his establishment at Millwall. The
first point related to the peculiarity of her great siz3 ;
the second, on which her merits or demerits as a piece

of naval architecture depended, was the general Arno
tore or lines of the ship ; the third point would be the
distribution of materials in the construction of the ship,
so a 3 to obtain the safest and strongest possible
structure with the minimum of materials ; and the

last point would be to allude generally to t'se mechanical
arrangements for her propulsion. With respect to siz
it was generally supposed that as a practical ship-
builder he was au advocate for big ships. The contrary,
however, was the fact. There were cases in which big
ships were good, and there wt re certain cases in which
big ships were ruinous to their owners. In every care
the smallest ship that would supply the convenience of
trade was the right ship to build. HQ came there as an

advocate of little sbip,, and it was the peculiarity of
the Great Eastern that she was the smallest, ship

capai,le of doing the work she was intended to do ;
and he believed that it she answered the purpose
for which she was designed, she would continue to

be the smallest ship possible for her voyage. It
was found by experience that no steam ship could be

_ .
worked profitably which was of less size than a ton to a
mile of the voyage she was to perform, carrying her own
col. Thus a ship intended to ply between England and
would not pay permanently unlesirshe were of
2,500 tons or 3,000 tons bUrden. In like manner, if a
veyel were intended to go from this country to Australia

or India without coaling on going ow, but taking her
coals with her, she would require to be 13,000 tons bur-
den ; and turning to the case before them, it would be
'ound that the big ship was a little short of the proper
Her voyage to Australia and back would hp

Z.

25,000 miles ; her tonnav,e, there!ore, should be 25,000

tons, whereas its actual amount was 22 000 tone. The
idea of making a ship large enough to carry her own coals
fora voyage to Australia and back nide was the idea of a
man famous fort large Brunch He eueeested
the matter to him (N.lre-Russell) as a practical ship-
builder, and the result was the monster vessel which he
was about to describe. He had peculiar pleasure in
laying a description of the lines of the ship before the
present meeting, because the ship as a naval structure,
as far as her lines were cenee'rned, was a child of that
section of the British Association. It was 22 'years
since they had the pleasure of meeting together in Dub-
lin. On that occasion he laid before the mechanical
seetion a feria of construction which bad since become
well known as the wave line. The section received the
idea so well that it appointed a commission to examine
into the matter, with the intention, if they found the
wave principle to be the true principle, to proclaim
it to the world. Toe committee pursued its inves-
tigations, publishing the results in the account of
their transactions, and from that time to the present
he had continued to make large and small vessels on
the eve principle, and the diffusion of this know-
ledge through the "Transactions" of the British' Asso-
ciation had led to its almost universal adoption. Where-
ever tbey found a steam vessel with a hi -h r putation for
speed, economy of foci, and good qualities at, sea, he
would undertake to say that they would find she was
constructed on the wave principle. Mr. Robert M'Cay,
the builder of the great American clipper, paid him a
visit twelve months ago at Millwell to see the big ship,
and be then very candidly said—" Mr. Russell, I have
adopted the wave principle in the construction of all my
American clippers, and that is my secret. I first
found the account of the wave line in the publications
of the British Association." (Hear, hear ) He would
endeavour to explain what were the principles of thee,
wave line as distinguished from the older fashioned modes
of building, and how" they were carried out in the hig
ship. All practical men knew that the first thing
a shipbuilder had to think of was what was called the
midship section of the vessel—that was the section which
would be made if the ship were cut through the middle,
and the spectator saw the cut portions. Mr. Ru-sell
here pointed out a diagram of the midship section of the
Wave, a small vessel ahout 74 tons burdeb, which was
the first ever constructed upon that principle. Noe, the
first thing to be done in building a steam vessel was to
make a calculation of the size of the midship section in
the water. In sailing from one place to another it was
necessary to excavate a canal out of the water large
enough to allow the whole body of theship to pass through.
The problem was how to do that most economically, and
this was effected by making the canal as narrow and as
shallow as possible, so that there would tie the smallest
quantity of water possible to excavate. Therefore it was
that the shipbuilder endeavoured to Wilt' as small a mid-
ship scctn a as he could, and that had been effected in the
case of the big ship,. whose midship eestion was small
—not small absolutely, but small in propordon. In
increasing the tonnage of a ship three things were to be
censidered—the paying rower, the prope ling power,
atid,the dimensions. Mr. Russell then entered into a
calculation to show that while he doubled the money-
earning power of a ship by increasing its size, he only
increased its mid-bin section be 50 per cent. For in-
eta es, a ship of 2,500 tons wouldhave 500 feet of exea-
vation through the water to do ; the i,ig ship had 2,000
feet of excavation,,anci the lineal di'nensione of the one
were to the lineal dimensions of the other as 1 to 2.1.
The excavation to be done by the big ship in relation to
that to be done by the small ship was as 2,000 to 500
feet, or four to one ; but the carrying power was as 25
thousand to 25 -hundred.- To propel the big ship they
had a nominal horse-power of 2,500, while to propel
the smaller vessel thews was a nominal horse-power of
500 ; so that the big ship would to worked quite as
economically as the small one. (Hear )' Re-erring again
to-the wave lane, he weruld suppose that it was given as
a problem to any one to design a ship on the wave prin-
ciple. The first thing to be done was to settle the speed
at which the ship was intended to go. If the speed were
fixed at 1-0 miles an hour, a reference to the table of the
wave principle would show that in order to effect that
object the length of the ship's bows ought to be abbue 60
feet and her stern about 40. If a la-ger vessel were re-
quired—say a ship of 130 feet long, there would be
nothing more to do than to put a middle bode of
,30
feet in length between the bow and the stern. (H• ar,
bear.) Having then made the width of the ship in
accordance with the midship section agreed upon,
it would be necessary to draw what was -known as
the wave line on both sides of the bow, and the
wave line of the second order on both sides of the stern
Qoostruwed in this manner, and propelled by the ordi-
nary amount of horseLpower, the ship would sail pr, -
cisely ten miles, an hour. The, could go slower than ten
miles an hbur if necessary, and in doing so they would
economies fuel, in coneequeues of the ditoinished.reeist-
ae es of the water, whet-ea-1 there would be a vastly
iocreased resistance if an attempt were nude to drive
the steamer more than ten -miles an hour. (Hear,
hear.) Now, with respect to the big ship. For the
speed at which it was intelided to drive the Greet
Eastern, it was found that the length of therbow [should
be 330 feet, the length of the stern 220 feet, of this
middle body 120 feet. and of the screw propeller 10
feet, making in all 680 feet in length. The lines
on which she was constructed were neither , more
nor le=e than an extes deal copy of the lines of all ships
which he had built since he first laid the wave prin-
ciple before that 'association. (Applause.) , It was his
pride that be had no' put a single experiment or novelty
into the structure of the vessel, with one or two excep-
tions, which he bad adopted on the recommendation of
men who had had practical experience- of their efficacy.
The wave principle bad never in asingle instance deceived
him as to the exact shape a vessel ought to be in order
to accomplish a certain rate of speed, and he had there-
fore adopted it in the coastruct on of the big ship.
(Hear, hear.) He would next refer to the mechanical
construction of the ship, the arrangement of the iron
of which she was made, and the objects of those ar-
rangements.' It was much to be desired that cur me-
chanical sciences should make progress by the simple
adoption of what was best, come froin where it might;
but he was sorry to Bay that iron shipbuilding did
not grow in that manner. They commenced by servilely
imitating the construction of wooden ships, thereby in-
currieg a great deal of unnecessary labour and expense.
There was this great difference between the strength of
iron and of wood, that while the latter was weak cross-
ways and strong lengthways, or with the grain of the
timber, iron was almost e qually strong either way. This
had been clearly a-certained by experiments mate by
Mr. Fairbairn and Mr. M. Hodgkinsen, at the request
of the British Association; in whose "Transactions" the
results were published to the world. The consequence
was that the ribs or frames used to strengthen, wooden
ships were rendered unnecessary in ship-building ; and
acting on this principle, the Wave, in the construction
of which he was assisted by two Irislonsio was built
of iron entirely,. with bulkheads, and had not a frame in
her from one end to the other. He was ashamed to say
-he did not always practise what he preached. He Was
compelled, against his will, by the persons for whom he
built to pursue the old system ; besides which there
were laws of trade, acts of Parliament, and Lloyd's rule,
to' which he was obliged to cenforin.. Thus if he did
not put a certain number of frames on the ship a -black
mark would be put upon her, and she would not be
allowed to go to sea. But whenever he, was allowed to
build according to his judgment he built in what he
considered to be the best way ; and ho believed that
in what he was now placing befe-re the section he was
laying the grounds of meeting the Briti-h Association
that day 20 years—(a laugh)—and finding that the
mode of mechanical construction which he proposed
had been universally adopted on the wave principle
because of the publications of the British Associa-.
tion. (Applause.) Mr. Scott Russell then pro-
ceeded to give an elaborate description of the old
method of constructing an iron ship, contrasting it with
the improved style which he pursued at present. Instead
of the mass of wooden rubbhh, which did not strong hen
the ship and involved enormous expense, he placed in-
side the iron shell as many complete bulkheads as the
owner permit' ed him to do, and then constructed in the.
intermediate spaces partial hulaheade, or bulkheads in
the centre of which boles had been cut for the purpose of
stoveege. The deck was strengthened by the introduc-
tion of pieces of angle iron and other contrivances, and
as an iron ship when weak was not Wreak crossways, but
lengthways, he strengthened it in this direction by means
of two longitudinal bulkheads, and the result was a
strength and solidity which could not,be obtained in any
other-way. The Great Bee-tern had all. these improve-
ments, and, in additio-, the cellular astern, so success-
fully app!ied in the Britannia Bridge, had been introduced
all round the bottom and under the deck of the chip,
giving the greatest amoune of strength to resist crushing
that could beoperoomduerept,soAnagaiesattodetahleolfaaulnacTinhgadofbetehoe
bot these apprehensions were ground-
esxhiopressisde,,dwbayys,
leas. The ground sloped from where the vessel now
stood at a steep incline cf 1 in 12, and when the