Sacramento daily record-union., 1882-01-28
ENGINEERING VIEWS on THE EADs sHIF
RAILWAY.

Before therefore We attempt to determine
whether Congress would or would not be
justified in doing what is asked OF 1t, we
must endeavor to ascertain whether OF not
the scheme proposed is practical or a
visionary one. When it was first broached
there can be 10 doubt that the prevailing
opinion was against it. That, however. is
a matter of 10 consequence, for the opinion
of the moment in all such cases is really
nothing more than the resentment which
natural conservatism exhibits on being re-
ouired to relinquish fixed beliefs and to
acquire new ones. 1t is this tendency TO
resent new ideas which makes human pro-
gress so slow, yet which at the same time
gives to human society its stability. In the
practical working out Of human civilization
the friction which holds back is quite as
indispensable as the momentum which i'm
pels. When therefore new discoveries are
received with mistrust or ridicule, the
fact, to the rejecting observer, conveys no
reproach against the invention, but merely
marks the unavoidable expression Of mems
indisposition to review their beliefs on
cognate subjects.
And this is what happened in regard to
Captain Eads and his ship railway. At
first the idea of taking loaded ships out OF
the water, putting them on cars, and
carrying them hundred miles over rail-
way, was scofed at as ridiculous, and this
not only by the general public, who knew
nothing about the matter except that it
was new, but by engineers and ship
builders, and professional men who ought
to have understood the project. Engi-
neers, however, are subject to the conserv-
ative tendency already referred to, and
their first impressions are not more trust
worthy than those of other people. That
they were all wrong in so far as they de-
clared the ship railway impracticable, we
have the most ample evidence before us in
the shape of pamphlet containing mum.
Der of letters from leading engineers and
"nayal architects as to the practicability
"of constructing and operating ship rail-
"way." Captain Eads has here been
enabled to present such mass of concur
rent testimony in support of his scheme,
from the very foremost engineers and
naval architects. in the world, as must put
at rest the question of its feasibility, at
once and for all time. It would, in fact,
be impossible for any engineering plan to
obtain more emphatic, authoritative and
conclusive Endorsements, than are here
given to his ship railway.
The most important and elaborate exam
ination of the scheme is given in letter by
Sir Edward j. Reed, K. G. B., formerly
Chief Constructor of the British Navy, and
beyond doubt the first authority in the
world on questions of naval construction,
and especially on questions of the strains
which naval structures will bear. And Sir
Edward Reed shows, in the most lucid
manner, exactly why the ship railway will
succeed, and exactly wherein all the obiec-
tions raised to it have been unscientifc
and ignorant. But perhaps the most sur
prising thing to those unfamiliar with the
progress of modern engineering will be the
many proofs given in these letters of the
wonderful advances made in that science
during the present century. As to by.
draulic docks capable of lifting ships
weighing ten or twelve thousand tons clean
out OF the water in ten or fifteen minutes,
they appear to be getting so common that
nobody thinks anything more of them. 1t
is also becoming common to make connec-
tions between canals or rivers on different
levels by constructing whole stretches of
canal-say two or three hundred feet long
so that they can be raised or lowered any
distance with the water and the vessels in
them, and this in two or three minutes.
We hear of hydraulic rams each of which
will lift thousand tons fifty feet in ten
minutes, and an engineer who knows all
about them calmly remarks that all Cap
tain Eads wants is few of them at each
end of his ship railway, to handle what
ever vessels may come along.
And the enormous docks that are being
built now are very startling. In Liverpool
they have not long opened new set of
docks which were seven years in building,
and cost S25, 100000. There are two of
them in either of which the Great Eastern
could lie easily. As to all questions of
bulk and power, our modern engineers
laugh at such difficulties. They are pre-
pared to handle an Infexible, weighing
IA, 900 tons, as easily as yacht. They 90
not admit that bulk initiates against
scheme. And they show (Sir Edward Reed
that all the fears of strainiDg
ships IN transitu are quite baseless, since it
is impossible that a ship can on railway
be subjected to one-tenth part of the
strains which she has to bear in storm at
sea. This is made very clear, and SO in
fact are all the points touched upon, and it
is positive pleasure to read these letters,
because the men who wrote them under
stand themselves so compile tely, and are so
clear-minded and sagacious in all their OBJ
servations. After this it will be nonsense
for anyone to object to the ship railway on
the ground that it is impracticable. In the
opinion of the greatest engineers living it
is far more practicable than canal, and
in all respects preferable to the latter.
Captain Eads has succeeded in getting