The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-01-12
THE CHINESE JUNK.
For Ages 1t Has Been Built Like Mod
ern Vessels.
LONDON Shipping World

London Shipping World.
At the opening meeting of the autumn
session of the Institute of Marine En-
gineers. held on Sept q at the Institute
premises, StratfOrd, Mr.. w G. Winterburn
read paper on THE Chinese Junk" In
the course of his paper the author said
that at the present moment much interest
was centered in China, and as he had spent
number of years in that country, closely
connected with engineering and ship
building, he thought that this subject of
the Chinese junk might prove interesting
TO the members of the institute. These
vessels were being built to-day, side by
side with steel steamers of the most mod
ern type, and 1t is quite conceivable that
very little alteration had been made in the
design for many ages. There were sin
OlOgueS who claimed every new invention
as only resurrection of something Chi
nese, and it was fact that many so-called
modern ideas were found utilized in Chi
nese vessels, and had been in vogue with
them from time immemorial. On the West
river might be seen the prototype of the
turret ship, bearing an extraordinary re-
semblance to our North of England mon
strosities, and If the captain who year
or two ago discovered and published the
fact that sails perforated with holes were
more effective than whole canvas were to
visit the Yang-tse he would see more of
that kind of sails than any other; some
indeed were so ragged that there was more
space than cloth. The delta of the Pearl
river was probably the greatest shipbuild-
ing district in China, and it was here
"
new were most marked. In Hong-Kong
might be seen on the stocks iunks, ex-
traOrdinarily shaped into cargo boats beau
tifully modelled wood steamers steel stern
wheelers steam yachts. gunboats and the
most up-to-date small cargo and passenger
vessels. The water-tght bulkhead had al
ways been a feature of Chinese naval
architecture; 1t was no uncommon thing
to see a junk come into harbor with one
end completely gone, mast and everything
there was generally one bulkhead forward
and one aft, but sometimes the cargo
space was subdivided also. The methods
which the Chinese used in building their
craft were pure rule-of-thumb, or. more
laid, frames set UP "allee same before"
and the owners only anxiety was TO see
that he got the scantlings agreed upon,
the model being left to the builder Being
so well able 10 build vessels of foreign type
suggested the query why the Chinese
should continue to build junks. Here again
was another example of official restrictions
cramping natural enterprise. The shipping
cleared out OF Hong-Kong in 1889 amounted
to 27.975 vessels. of which 22,50l were junks:
the tonnage was. respectively, S,563 127 and
S46749 the foreign-built vessels avera cling
226 tons each and the junks S61h tons
Now. foreign-built vessels could only trade
to the open ports, but there were num-
berless other centers OF trade in China to
which hunks could ply. As nearly all the
timber used for shipbuilding I'm China was
imported and the country possessed
illimitable quantities of iron and coal, be-
sides other minerals, II was safe 10
prophesy that the day would come when
shipbuilding would be one of the greatest
Industries of the far East