Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1883-08-15
From Our Regular Correspondent
London Letter.
LONDON, August 2, 1883

LONDON. August 2, 1883.
You willhcar with interest that there !
some probability of once more behodins
the famous leviathan steamship, the Grea
Eastern. making regular passages to and
from the river Thames. Years have
elapsed since the huge fabric was nearer
to the city of London than the Midway
Her bulk IL not likely to allow her to com
very high. for there are bends in the rive
this side OF Gravesend which would prove
rather dangerous navigation to vesse
that is more than an eighth of mile long
1t is stated that company has beer
formed to purchase the vessel, and that
she will be employed in the coal trad
between the Firth of Forth and the
Thames. As much as twenty thousan'
tons of coal, it is calculated, can be stowe'
in her vast interior in sacks. No one neel
doubt the Great Eastern's carrying capacit,
though the use to which she is to be put Il
last seems strange, and not without Patio
to those who can recall the dreams of he
designers and builders, and the enthusiasm
\ aud excitement which her colossal form
a awakened as she lay broadside 10 the
river at The shipyard thirty years ago.
1t will be strange if she would prove 8
success in this her last undertaking. Sc
hopeless did she seem as commercia
venture even before she Was launched thai
Mr.. Lindsay, the shipowner, relates tina
| when Mr.. Brunei asked him, GLOW will
\ she pay P" he answered that she woulc
never pay rs a ship, and that the bes
thing TO do would be to send her to Brigh
ton, dig out hole in the beach and bed
her there, and make a promenade of her
with grand hotel in her tween-decks
where room could be found for salt ware
baths and dancing saloons. Ii she won d
"pay" now, the triumph will eDm. la o,
hut it will be Il triumph for the great o.t
ship, for ali that.
1t is thirty years ago since she wa
built. and during that time shipbulding
mas made gigantic STRIDES rs respects
dimensions of craft /; therefore, if we In
this age cannot reflect without wonder
| upon the mass of material which entered
INTO the Great Eas'ern's composition, VIVA
must have been the am1zement and the
enthusiasm excited by her in the public Of
the age to which she fairly belonged! She
was furnished with engines for her paddles
and screws whose combined power was
equal 10 eleven thousand horses. Hel
interior was de igred to afford accom- u cd /,
ton for four thousand passeng4r rs. As
even with speaking trumpetat his mouth
her captain was unable to make his orders
heard she was fitted with semaphores fol-
day use and colored lamps at night
and also an electric telegraph by which
the commander made his orders known
Her saloons in their original form were
truly magnificent, furnished with massive
looking glasses, ornamented panels, nobly
decorated columns, sofas covered with
Utrect velvet, portiers of rich crimson
silk to all the doorways, and so forth. She
carried twenty large boats, and two small
steamers, each one hundred feet long
Under full sail she sp cad six thousand
five hundred yards OF canvass. There
were ten anchors and eight hundred
of chain cable, whilst her five
tunnels were each one hundred feet high,
with ten furnaces to every paddle boiler,
of which there were ten.
On the seventeenth Of June 1860, she
started on her first voyage across the
Atlantic, with only thrty-six passengers
aboard. Her second passage to America
was made in the May of the following year,
he distance being made in ten days, her
greatest speed never exceeding fourteen
and half knots. She was next EMPLOYED
in transporting about two Thousand troops
10 Quebec, and then followed another
Transatlantic voyage with four hundred
passengers on board. On this occasion
most melancholy account of her behavior
in storm was given by the passengers
who stated that, tall rs she was, she rolled
her quarter boats under water, and thai
he angle her decks presented was upwards
IF forty, five degrees She is mainly mcmor
,ble as triumph of engineering and con
,tructive skill. Al this moment she i,
'eported to be in as good condition as she
was at the time of her launch. and in her
ron finds one of the most signally success
ul illustrations of its serviceabIeness in
nip building. when of good qrality and
out together by the hands of a master.