Gould / Chadwick / Rideing Ocean Steamships

1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-3-7364-1968-1
Verlag: anboco
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 475 Seiten

Ocean Steamships - A popular account of their construction, development, management and appliances. A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move propellers or paddlewheels.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gould, John H.

Chadwick, F. E.

Rideing, William H.

Seaton, A. E.

Kelley, J. D. J.

Leseproben

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE STEAMSHIP.

By COMMANDER F. E. CHADWICK, U. S. NAVY.

Slow Growth of the Idea of Steam Propulsion—Models Shown at the Liverpool Exhibition in 1886—Claims of Precedence in the Invention of Steamboats—What Fulton Accomplished—The Clermont—The Voyage of the Savannah in 1819—The First War Steamer—The Atlantic Crossed by the Sirius and Great Western in 1838—Founding of the Cunard Company—Invention of the Screw Propeller—Its Application to the Archimedes and the Great Britain—Early Fleet of the Cunard Company—American Enterprises—The Screw Steamer Princeton—Establishment of the Pacific Mail—The Collins Line—Its Success and Ultimate Failure—The Great Eastern—Beginning of Great Rivalry in Speed—Triple Expansion Engines—Important Changes in Design.

IT is a wonderful fact in the swift expansion of mechanical knowledge and appliances of the last hundred years that while for unknown ages the wind was the only propelling force used for purposes of navigation, apart from the rude application of power through oars worked by men, the whole scheme of steam transport has grown, practically, to its present wonderful perfection within the lifetime of men yet living.

Of course, the idea, as is that of all great inventions, was one of slow growth. It cropped up at various stages through the eighteenth century, and there are faint evidences of gropings in this direction in the latter part of the seventeenth; but these latter were not much more definite than the embodiment of the idea of the telegraph in Puck’s girdle round the earth, and the evidence that men really thought of propelling boats by steam is very meagre until we come to the pamphlet written by Jonathan Hulls, in 1737, in which he gave utterance to a very clear and distinct idea in the matter. It struggled through a very backward infancy of fifty years and more, certain memorable names appearing now and then to help it along, as that of Watt (without whose improvements in the steam-engine it must still have remained in swaddling-clothes), Fitch, De Jouffroy, Rumsey, Symington, and finally Fulton, who, however much he may have learned from his predecessors, has unquestionably the credit of putting afloat the first commercially successful steamboat. He is thus worthy of all the honor accorded him; much of it came too late, as he died at the comparatively early age of fifty, after passing through the harassments which seem naturally to lie in the path of the innovator.

A graphic history of the wonderful changes wrought in this great factor of the world’s progress was set forth during the summer of 1886, at the International Exhibition at Liverpool, where, by model and drawing, the various steps were made more completely visible and tangible than, perhaps, ever before. True, the relics of the earlier phases of the steamship age, when its believers were but few and generally of small account, were sparse, but the exhibits of later models, from the date of the inception of transatlantic traffic, preparations for which were begun in earnest by laying down the steamship Great Western in 1836, were frequent enough, and the whole of the steps in the development of the means of ocean traffic from then till now were sufficiently well shown.

The exhibition, of course, did not confine itself to the steam era alone. It even had a model of an Egyptian vessel, which was exhibited by the Liverpool Library Society, as taken from Thebes, and estimated to date about 1,500 years B.C., and which Moses himself might thus have seen. It was a long stretch, however, to the next in date, as no others antedated 1700 A.D. There were many of the handsome and dignified eighteenth-century men-of-war, built at a time when men began to preserve a record of their work in the miniature ships which are now esteemed an essential addition to almost every vessel of importance put afloat. Firms now exist whose only business it is to make the various minute fittings—the ports, chains, anchors, blocks, etc.—of the Liliputian craft, so that every detail of the original is given with an exact verisimilitude in very often most beautiful and elaborate work.

It would have been very interesting had the early struggles of the steamboat been thus illustrated in extenso, but there is nothing of its concrete history earlier than a small model of the original Comet, built by Henry Bell, at Glasgow, in 1812, and so named because of the extraordinary comet of that year, and the engines of her successor, built in 1820. These recall, however, the vessel which was the first steamer engaged in passenger traffic in Europe, and are thus worthy of honor.

In looking over the beautiful array of models then exhibited, which thus represented almost every stage of progress in British steamship building, from the Comet onward, one could not help regretting that an effort had not been made by our government to bring together models, of which there must have been some, at least, available, illustrative of our earlier practice, particularly as there is much in it peculiar to us, and which would have been most interesting to the great public which visited the exhibition. Models of the Clermont; of the Stevens experimental screw boat; a later Mississippi steamer; the Savannah—the first vessel using steam which ever crossed the Atlantic; the Washington, the pioneer of regular transatlantic steam traffic under our flag; the Adriatic; the Hudson River and great Sound steamers of to-day, would, apart from any war-ship models of interest which could have been sent, have made a most interesting and attractive collection. The only things, however, which were visible were the drawings of a New York ferry-boat (the type of which, by the way, we owe to Fulton), so placed as to be scarcely discoverable. These boats are so typical, so different from anything found in Europe, and so interesting to any student of steam ferriage as a thorough adaptation of means to an end, that a complete model of the boat and its ferry slip would have been a most satisfactory addition.

It must be remembered that the steamboat had in its earlier days a much greater extension in America than elsewhere. Our great rivers were an especially attractive field for its use. The Mississippi had but lately come under our control, and the beginning of the great tide of Western emigration and exploration was almost coincident with the steamboat’s advent, so that through these favoring conditions it had a much more rapid growth among us than elsewhere.

The display, however, of British models was as complete as it could well be made. Private owners and builders, the Admiralty, and Lloyds’ Registry, united to make the collection a very complete and perfect one. Of continental European exhibits, that of the Italian Government, which sent a very splendid collection of models of its great war-ships, was the most important. Associated with it was the exhibit of the Fratelli Orlando of Leghorn, who have done much of both the public and private building of Italy. The only French exhibit was that of the Bureau Veritas, which followed the example of its English rival, Lloyds, in making a very striking and instructive show.

The only exhibits of modern war-ships were those of England and Italy, unless we except the numerous vessels built for foreign powers by English builders. The remainder of the display was chiefly connected with the strife of commerce, and in this it is likely to remain as complete and comprehensive as can be made in some time to come. It was one also in which Britain might well take pride, as, however great the United States were as pioneers or as more than equals in the beginning of the race, we have long since been distanced by our kinsmen, and we must refer, for some years at least, to Great Britain to study the principal changes in hull and machinery of the last half-century, though the great strides of the last six years, accomplished through our war-ship construction, bid fair to once more put us in our old and honorable place.

The Liverpool exhibition was the forerunner of a number of others of like character, which have culminated in the “Naval Exhibition” of 1891 in London, which, however, is more concerned with war than was its predecessor, and does not enter so fully into the details of early practice.

It is useless to draw comparisons between the value of claims of precedence in the history of steam navigation. The fact that Fulton’s efforts finally started the world to building steamboats for actual service is indisputable. All preceding cases were simply sporadic, and had none of the contagious power possessed by the experiments on the Hudson. Fulton himself had already built six steamboats before one was built elsewhere than in America. His boats, from the beginning, were of practical value, and not small experiments, the Clermont herself being 136 feet long, 18 feet broad, 7 feet deep, of 160 tons; and the diameter of her wheels was 15 feet.

In 1809 the first steamboat, the Accommodation, was seen on the St. Lawrence, and in 1811 the first (built at Pittsburgh) appeared on the Mississippi. A year after this the Comet, already alluded to, was put upon the Clyde by Henry Bell. She was only 40 feet long on the keel, and 101/2 broad, with two small paddle-wheels on each side, driven by a gearing which geared into a wheel on the axle of each set of paddle-wheels. Her original engines are still in existence, and are deposited in the Museum at South Kensington, where they were set up by the same engineer (Mr. John Robertson) who placed them in the Comet.

Fulton also has the honor of being...