Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1857-12-29
A LEvIATHAN DIFFICULTy

A LEvIATHAN DIFFICULTY.
The London Times makes the refusal of the
LeVlathan ship to be launched, the theme of a
spicy and satirical article. The Shareholder
Oh the Leyiathan are, it says, patient men. Te
De sure, they cannot help thems elves now; they
are embarked in struggle with that creates
ana most portentous power in nature-tbc ri,
ineTfio, which they must carry out. It isan.
other form of the siege of Sebasto But the
siege OF SebastopOl itself has not after ALI. the
naked dignity 1t a war with simple tonnage
that primOrdial and ancient power which eSist.
ed before the Cyclops, before the PeIagi. before
the very giants who hurled Pelion and Ossa AT
tne gods And in proportion to the dignity Of
TIT the contest Is the patience which it demands
There are those shareholders of the Leyiathan.
standing round in solemn silence, witnessing
an awful silent contest, they feel the conscious
mass OF tremendous forces at work of pressure
and weight in dreadful antagonism, like two
strong opposing wills; of a mighty contest. of
which they see the outside in the shape of tim
bers, hydraulic engines, rams and cradles. bu I
which is itsolf as hidden and invisible as the
action OF the magnet or the journey of the cleo.
trio messenger. There they are, standing round
and watching for the visible effects of This in.
Visible struggle; hours and hours, days and
days roll on, and small indeed and gradual is
the fruit. The Leviathan is n true Instance of
~
the water, but you can't make him drink''-at
least hitherto she has effectualIy resisted
lhere she lies, on the very bank of the noble
riyer that Is to convey her TO the ocean, but she
VIII not as yet wet her lips. For hours and
nours II Is pressure-pres.ure-pre
sometimes she does not move bit; then with
snilen noise, she slips foot, her caprices alarm
the engineers, and slip Of several feet seems
to threaten a second deluge. Nobody can nm
derstand her ways. Then all is still again and
mouonless; the cylinders burst the timbers
crack, and she will not stir an inch
We are now in the midst of the contest. and
grand as II is, the shareholders of the Leyia
than must sometimes revert in thought to the
disagreeable subject Of its enormous cost This
strnggis OF hydraulic power with the Ireyia-
than has already cost f7O,O0O, and nobody
knows how much more it will cost We can
not understand how, with the full data before
NJ, the number Of tons to be moved. the ANGLE
OF the incline, and an aseertained rate of fric
tiOn, dynamic science could not have caIcu-
lated beforehand with substantial certainty and
accuracy the amount of force which wouid he
required to move the Leviathan. Asitis. there
has not been an approximation to a correct esti-
mate OF 1.-THE force has been doubled since
the commencement Of the process addition,
being made from time to time simply "a the
course OF the experiment and as the motionless
condition of the hulk made it necessary, and
ny "1 ol hppdIcnIly upon any OASIS OF
vious calculation. There have been endless
speculatiOns as to how Stonehenge was erected
as to how the Cyclopeah buildings in Beotia
Argolls, and elsewhere were erected but no
theory, and hardly any legend, about Cyclops
and races OF giants, and their application of
rude enormous strength to the uplifting of
huge stones, ever raised more awkward mic
ture OF rts roRsif Srpsrs than this experiment
upon the Leviathan. The engines for produc-
Ing motion have been scientific, but the use of
them has been as rash and uncalculatjpp as if
we had been depending on primitive and un-
instructed nature. There have been omissions
which II has been difficult to account for the
necessity even OF producing fulcrum from
winch the rams might act was not foreseen;
and when that defect was supplied and the
ship began to move, the rams, which ought to
have moved with II, were stationary and
obliged to act upon the ship by long beams.
which were constantly breaking, and which
were always used with sacrifice of power.
Even shareholders money was never more con
spicuodsly wasted than in this blind, uncalcu-
iating struggle with this enormous hulk. The
question has been very naturally asked, "Why
was not the Leyiathan built, to begin with in
a dry dock of her own, which would. upon the
water being let in, have itself foated her with
outfurther trouble into the Thames - Had the
expenses OF this ultra-scientifc machinery for
motion been at all forseen, such plan must
uI,
ut any rate why build her so far from the river,
aud Interpose, quite unnecessarily, 50 great a
distance between her and the water that was
To receive her, This was n great oversight, if
anything like the present oostliness OF the pro-
cess was anticipated; for when we find every
foot OF motion costs nearly a thousand pounds.
We may well begin to grumbie at every extra
foot which is gratuitous and unnecessary The
whole experiment, indeed, bears the look of the
grossest miscalculation, as if the obviously and
comparatively cheap expedient of a dry dock
had been put aside, and even distance from the
river thou sht OF no consequence, on the strength
of some great for thcoming exploit, when the
time comes, wholly fails The engineer would
seem perfectly to have left difficulties in order
that he might show the easy triumph which he
could achieve over them; but when il comes
to the trial, the difficulties have triumphed
good deal more than the engineer. Science
has seldom, indeed, looked more like herself.
and more like rude, awkward, priinev al nature,
than in this unfortunate experiment, which
will, before it is over, make the cost of the
launch an utterly unheard of proportion of the
cost of the old ship. r'.