Worcester morning daily spy., 1898-01-17
OCEAN STEAMSHIPS.
The Rapid Development of the Trans
Atlantic Service.

| Atlantic Service.
| (F'rom the New York Evening Post.)
1t is an extraordinary fact that within
the span of a mans life the ocean
! steamer has passed from the expert
mental stage to what appears now to be
nearly its highest development. On
July 4, 1915, little more than so years
ago, surely one of New York's historic
! days, Fulton's 150-foot Demologos
steamed past Sandy Hook, the first of
an innumerable host, breasted the
waves of the ocean for few miles and
returned to her mornings on the Hudson
| with a jubilant party aboard. This
triumph suggested transatlantic voy-
| age-a suggestion that was received at
first with stolid incredulity and then
! with derision
| The project Of making voyage tby
| Steamship directly from New York to
/ Liverpool" declared an eminent Eng
hshman, is perfectly chimerical. They
/ might as well talk of making voyage
directly from New York or Liverpool to
/ the MOON" And though inland and
coastwise navigation steadily developed
4 meanwhile. it was not until 1919 that
4 the partially successful voyage of a
| hybrid craft, half-Sailer, half-steamer.
/ shook the assurance of this and other
| dogmatists. For IL years, however,
transatlantic steamships unaccountably
languished; then an Individually success
! ful passage was followed by an frnme-
date revival Of interest. large invest
ments and growth that has continued to
| this day.
The first vessel to cross the Atlantic
| with partial use Of steam as a propeu-
| ing power was the Savannah, of $50
TONS, launched at Corlears, N. Y, on
| August y, 1918. She had been built as
a sailing ship, to ply between New
| ork and Savannah, and served that
purpose for almost year, when she
was bought by syndicate of Savannah
merchants and fitted with a steam en-
CINE and paddle wheels. Her owners
! seem to have had only little faith in the
paddle wheels, for they were SO con-
! structed that they could be folded and
slowed away on deck should that seem
| advisable. The Savannah left port on
| May rs, 1919, with a cargo of pitch pine
| Tor fuel, and arrived at Liverpool after
| twenty-five days, the paddle-wheels hav-
| ing been Idle for seven days. Evidently
! the experiment had been discouraging,
for the Savannah returned as sailing
vessel, and contentedly remained one
until, some years later, great storm
! put an end to her career on the south
coast of Long Island.
| The voyage of the Savannah had
proven steam to be desirable auxiliary
| poWer-nothing more. Could sufficient
fuel be carried to make it more desira-
bic? This became the great problem,
and the preponderance of opinion was
decidedly negative In 1886 the Great
Western Steamship Company was or
ganized in England, and satisfactorily
solved the problem The Great West
ern, from whose first voyage really
dates transatlantic steamship travel,
was designed on a scale of unprecedent-
ed magnitude. She was launched on
July 10, 1887, and sailed from Bristol for
New York on Sunday, April s. 1888, with
seven intrepid passengers aboard.
In the meantime the Sirius, an
avowed competitor, had been fitted up
by hastily organized company to at
tempt the voyage, and had sailed four
| days in advance of the Great Western.
| This, the first ocean race, was won by
| the Great Western. Both vessels ar
rived in New York on the same day,
| Monday, April 23-the Great Western
with 200 tons of coal in her bunkers and
the Sirius, her supply exhausted, burn
| ing spars and resin to enable her to
reach port The day of arrival was a
red-letter one in the history of New
! York. The people were not blind to the
great promise in the event. There was
an enthusiastic reception; the news was
| spread abroad and the whole nation
was interested. And in proof Of the sin
certify Of their faith, it may be told
| that when the Great Western left port
| homeward bound, cheered by hundred
| thousand people from Battery Park (ac-
cording to an eXuberant reporter of the
time), she carried siXty-siX passengers
After having made 81 transatlantic
voyages, from 1898 to 1S43, with an av-
ferage time of passage between Liver
pool and New York of 10 days and II
hours, and from New York, eastward
Of IS days and 6 hours, and having car
ried an average of So passengers per
trip, the Great Western was sold in 1S47
to the West India Steam Packet Compa-
ny. Ten years later she was broken up
at VauXhall, and for season, it is said,
her historic huh fed the drawing room
fires of West End, London. A COMPARE
son-space limits it to brief one
between the first ocean steamer and the
latest addition to the North German
Lloyd fleet. the Kaiser Wilhelm der
Crosse, and OF the records of their
maiden trips is interesting,
The Great Western had a length over
all of 296 feet, breadth of beam So feet
4 inches, depth 80 feet inches, tonnage
1910: the Kaiser Wilhelm der Crosse has
a length Of 649 feet beam Sc feet, depth
AZ feet, and tonnage $4,000. The Great
Westerns maiden trip consumed some
thing over Is days; that of the Kaiser
Wilhelm der Crosse 5 days, % hours
and So minutes. The former burned 500
tons of coal during the passage; the
latter 500 tons a day. The greatest num-
Der Of passengers carried by the Great
Western on a single trip was 1852; the
Kaiser wilhelm has accommodations
for 144O passengers and q crew Of 49,
total Of 1900.
The year 1910 and the Immediately
succeeding ones were notable in the his
tory Of steam navigation Samuel Gu
nard of Halifax, N. S., with George
Burns Of Glasgow and David McIver of
Liverpool, founded the Cunard line and
established steam traffic between the
two continents; and the Great Western
Steamship Company built the Great
Britain, and so revolutionized steamship
construction and the application of the
propelling power In 1910 the English
government entered into contract with
tine Cunard company for carrying the
mails-the consideration was 100000
year-and the Acadia, Britannia, Col
umbia and Caledonia were put afoat.
The first, the Britannia, was a paddle
wheel steamer with a wooden hull but,
M. ....oSr,-~s.ei,to 10 5lfAs 80 vxro-4e.4,