The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-09-29
THE GREAT EASTERN.

Recent arrivals from Europe bring us particu-
lars of the departure of the Great Eastern on
herEtrial trip down the river Thames and around
the southern coast of England to Portland, in
Dorsetshire. In our foreign summary we have
given the leading facts and incidents in this
greatest of nautical experiments. By the latest
arrival, it will be seen that in spite of an acct
dent which would have proven disastrous to
any other vessel in the world, viz: the explo-
sion of boiler-pipe, the Great Eastern had
smooth and otherwise perfectly successful voy-
age We have no reason to suppose that the
boiler explosion is in any degree connected with
or traceable to the extraordinary dimensions
of the ship, and hence it may be assumed that
the experiment Of launching a steamship upon
the ocean, some four or FIVE times the size of
the greatest steamers hitherto known, is per-
fectly successful. The boiler explosion, in the
nature of things, must be traceable to neglect,
or to some fault in the internal arrangements
of the ship, which can be easily remeded.
There can certainly be ne inherent obstacle to
the supply of the boilers with water, growing
out of their magnitudei and we therefore dis.
ter of accidents. Why should this common
casualty cause the public to withhold its faith
in the great experiment, when thousands like
it have not shaken confidence in the utility of
steam as a motive power?
The success of this enterprise will doubtless
lead to others on still grander scale; and
while the people of to day are amazed in read
ing of ship of twenty thousand tons, it is high
ly probable that the next generation will build
vessels of a hundred thousand. This experi
ment, like all that have preceded it. would seem
to establish the fact that ships of the greatest
magnitude combine in the highest degree the
advantages of speed, steadiness, and safety.
Analogy suggested this to the inventive genius
Ofship-builders before experiment demonstrated
it, On small bays and inlets, they saw that a
small bark is dashedand tossed about by waves
which would scarcely disturb the repose of
great ship; and why may not ships of proper
tibnate magnitude be equally Indifferent to the
waves of the ocean? Reasoning in this way,
the nautical genius of England has ventured
upon the great and glorious experiment, which
appears to be crowned with success, and which
future generations will point to as an epoch in
the history of civilization.
The great inventions and discoveries of this
century so far exceed in magnitude and impor-
lance the anticipations of those who were CO
temporary with their origin, that we risk little
ia predicting the greatest results as likely to
follow this grand enterprise.
Who, for instance, in 1907, when Fulton first
launched his little steamer on the Hudson, as
very doubtful experiment, thought that in half
century thousands of steamers, ten and TWEEN
tyfoh larger, would penetrate every river on the
continent; and who forty years ago, when
honest George Stephenson the English collier,
was experimenting with his steam locomotives
upon the ram-roads which lead from the
canals to the coal mines, could have imagined
the grand results which have followed? AL.
most all other modes of travel in the United
Kingdom are now abandoned for the ten
thousand miles of railway, over which men
and their merchandise move at the rate of forty
or fifty miles an hour Stephenson himself
only yentured to predict that by means of his
new invention ten tons weight could be moved
at the rate of ten miles an hour; and this pre-
diction, short as it was of the reality, was
sneered at, not by fools, but by the wise and |
prudent, as the dream of wild enthusiast.
The telegraph is another of the wonders of
the age, which have given illustration of the
saying that g truth is stranger than felton,
Twenty years ago, a prophecy that at this day
the transmission Of intelligence between Bos-
tonand New Orleans would be the work of
few minutes, would have been received with |
conSemptuous incredulity. 1t was only the
dresmers and Missionaries who for moment
entertained such projects; while the men of
" common sense" would not listen to them.
In like manner, those who draw upon their
im!gnations for picture of the results which
anther generation will witness in the art of
Navigating the ocean, viii be laughed at; but
thehistory of the past proves that the dream
ersland Missionaries were the men of wisdom,
While those who did not dream simply slept, in |
ignorance and blindness to athe signs of the
tines
he Great Eastern, it is said, win convey ten
tholsand passengers, or the population of a
county, at a load and vessels may be built, |
within ten years, capable of conveying city |
or province of forty thousand inhabitants,
! acrsss the Atlantic, in the course Of week.