EARLY YEARS OF STEAM NAVIGATION.
The _Accommodation_—The _Savannah_—_Enterprise_
—_Royal William_—_Liverpool_—_Sirius_ and
_Great Western_—_Great Britain_ and _Great
Eastern_—The Brunels—The screw propeller.
Two years after the _Clermont_ had commenced to ply on the Hudson, and
three years before the _Comet_ had disturbed the waters of the Clyde,
the first steamboat appeared on the St. Lawrence. The _Accommodation_,
built by the Hon. John Molson, of Montreal, made her maiden trip to
Quebec on November 3rd, 1809, carrying ten passengers, in thirty-six
hours’ running time. In accordance with the usual custom, which
continued for many years, she anchored at night, so that the whole time
occupied in the voyage was sixty-six hours. If she ascended the St.
Mary’s current, she was towed up by oxen. The length of this vessel was
eighty-five feet over all, her breadth sixteen feet, her engine was of
six horse-power, and her speed five miles an hour. The _Accommodation_
was built at the back of the Molson’s Brewery, and was launched
broadside on. Her engine was made by Boulton & Watt, of Birmingham,
England. The fare from Montreal to Quebec by this vessel was £2 10s.;
children, half price; “servants with _birth_ (_sic_), £1 13s. 4d.;
without _birth_, £1 5s.” The Quebec _Mercury_, announcing her arrival,
remarked: “She is incessantly crowded with visitors. This steamboat
receives her impulse from an open-spoked perpendicular wheel on each
side, without any circular band or rim. To the end of each double spoke
is fixed a square board which enters the water, and by the rotatory
motion of the wheels acts like a paddle. No wind or tide can stop her.”
[Illustration: “JEANIE DEANS,” CLYDE STEAMBOAT.
From “Mountain, Moor and Loch,” London, 1894.]
_The Savannah._—In the year 1818 there was built in New York, by
Messrs. Crocker and Pickett, a full-rigged sailing ship of about 350
tons, named the _Savannah_. She was intended to be used as a sailing
packet between New York and Havre, but before she was completed she was
purchased by William Scarborough & Co., a shipping firm in Savannah,
who fitted her up with a steam-engine of 90 horse-power, placed on
deck, and a pair of paddle-wheels enclosed with canvas coverings, so
constructed that they could be folded up and taken on deck in stormy
weather, and that tedious operation seems to have been gone through
pretty frequently in the course of her first voyages. Her maiden trip
from New York to Savannah occupied 8 days, 15 hours. She left Savannah
for Liverpool under steam, May 22nd, 1819, and arrived in the Mersey,
“with all sail set,” on June 20th, making the run in twenty-nine and
a half days. The whole time that the engine was at work during the
voyage is said to have been only eighty hours. “She hove to off the
bar, waiting for the tide to rise, at 5 p.m. shipped her wheels”—so the
record of the period runs—“furled her sails and steamed up the river,
with American banners flying, the docks being lined with thousands
of people, who greeted her arrival with cheers.” From Liverpool, the
_Savannah_ sailed up the Baltic to Stockholm and St. Petersburg. On her
return voyage, on account of stormy weather, the engine was scarcely
used at all until the pilot came aboard off Savannah, when the sails
were furled, and with the flood-tide she steamed into port. After
several voyages of a similar kind, the machinery was removed and she
plied for some time as a sailing packet between New York and Savannah,
and was eventually wrecked on Long Island in 1822.
Shortly after this the British Government offered a prize of £10,000
to the party who should first make a successful voyage by steam power
to India. The prize was won by Captain Johnston, who sailed from
England on August 16th, 1825, in the _Enterprise_, of 500 tons and
240 horse-power,[7] and reached Calcutta on the 7th of December. The
distance run was 13,700 miles, and the time occupied 113 days, during
ten of which the ship was at anchor. She ran under steam sixty-four
days and consumed 580 chaldrons of coal, the rest of the voyage being
under sail.
[Illustration: THE “SAVANNAH,” 1819.]
Eight years followed without any further attempts in the direction of
ocean steam navigation. There seemed to be nothing in these costly
experiments that would induce capitalists to invest their money in
steamships. Sailing vessels had crossed the Atlantic in much less than
thirty days, and had made the voyage to India in less time than the
_Enterprise_ took to do it. It would not pay! and had not scientific
men and practical engineers pronounced the idea of transatlantic
steamships as Utopian and utterly impracticable? “No vessel could be
constructed,” they said, “that could carry enough coal to take her
across the Atlantic by steam power alone.” Some of these unbelievers
lived to see the day when large ocean steamers not only carry enough
coal to take them from Liverpool to New York, but actually enough for
the return voyage also.
THE “ROYAL WILLIAM.”
The _Savannah_ and _Enterprise_ were admittedly nothing more than
sailing ships with auxiliary steam power. In the archives of the
National Museum at Washington there is to be found the full history
and log of the _Savannah_, which proves conclusively that she was not
entitled to be called the pioneer of transatlantic steam navigation.
That the honour belongs to the _Royal William_, built at Quebec and
engined at Montreal, has been clearly proven. The evidence in support
of this claim is embodied in a report of the Secretary of State of
Canada for the year ended December 31st, 1894. From this it appears
that the _Royal William_ was designed by Mr. James Goudie, Marine
Architect of Quebec, and that she was launched from the shipyard of
Messrs. Campbell and Black at Cape Cove, Quebec, April 29th, 1831, in
presence of Lord Aylmer, the Governor-General, and a vast concourse
of people, Lady Aylmer naming the vessel with the usual ceremonies
after the reigning monarch, William IV. She was towed to Montreal,
where her engines of 200 horse-power were fitted by Messrs. Bennett
and Henderson. She steamed back to Quebec in the beginning of August.
She was built for the Quebec and Halifax Steam Navigation Company,
incorporated by Act of Parliament, March 31st, 1831. This company
comprised 235 persons whose names appear in the Act, among them
being the three brothers, Samuel, Henry and Joseph Cunard. Samuel,
the founder of the Cunard Line, was a frequent visitor at the Quebec
shipyard, and carefully noted down all the information he could get
from the builders.
[Illustration: MODEL OF STEAMSHIP “ROYAL WILLIAM.”
THIS INTERESTING RELIC HAS AN HONOURED RESTING-PLACE IN THE LIBRARY
OF THE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF QUEBEC. IT WAS SENT, AT
THE REQUEST OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE ROYAL NAVAL EXHIBITION, TO THAT
EXHIBITION, HELD IN LONDON IN 1891, AND NUMBERED 4,736, WHERE IT
ATTRACTED CONSIDERABLE ATTENTION, AND THE SOCIETY RECEIVED FROM THE
COMMITTEE A HANDSOME DIPLOMA BY WAY OF A SOUVENIR.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS MODEL WAS RECOGNIZED BY THE DOMINION GOVERNMENT.
BY ORDERING A FACSIMILE OF IT TO BE MADE, AND SENDING IT TO THE
COLUMBIAN EXHIBITION, OR WORLD’S FAIR, AT CHICAGO, IN 1893. IT IS NOW
TO BE SEEN IN THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AT OTTAWA.]
This historic vessel was registered No. 2 in the port of Quebec. She
was rigged as a three-masted schooner, of 363-60/94 tons burthen, with
a standing bowsprit and square stern. Her length was 160 feet; breadth,
taken above the main wales, 44 feet; depth of hold, 17 feet 9 inches;
and width, between the paddle-boxes, 28 feet. She cost about £16,000.
The _Royal William_, commanded by Captain J. Jones, R.N., sailed from
Quebec for Halifax, August 24th, 1831, with twenty cabin passengers,
seventy steerage, and a good freight. She arrived on the 31st—six and a
half days from Quebec. Several voyages were made that year to Halifax
and the Gulf ports. Next year, owing to the prevalence of cholera,
trade was at a standstill, and there was nothing for the new steamship
to do. She was accordingly sold by Sheriff Gugy, at the church door,
in the parish of Sorel, for £5,000. In April, 1833, she was placed
under the command of Captain John Macdougall, a native of Oban,
Scotland. During May she towed vessels from Grosse Isle, and in June
sailed for the lower ports, Halifax and Boston, reaching the latter
place on the 17th—the first British steamer to enter that port. On her
return to Quebec, her owners decided to send her to London to be sold.
She sailed August 5th, arrived at Pictou on the 8th, and sailed thence
on the 18th, with seven passengers, a box of stuffed birds, one box
and one trunk, some household furniture, 254 chaldrons of coal, and a
crew of thirty-six men. The voyage to Cowes, Isle of Wight, was made in
nineteen and a half days. She was deeply laden with her coal, had very
rough weather, and had to run with one engine for ten days. A short
time having been spent at Cowes, painting the ship, etc., “she steamed
up to Gravesend in fine style—the first vessel to cross the Atlantic
propelled by the motive power of steam alone.”
The _Royal William_ was sold in London for £10,000, and was chartered
to the Portuguese Government as a transport. In 1834 she was sold to
the Spanish Government, and named the _Isabel Segunda_, and while in
this service was the first war-steamer to fire a hostile shot. In
1837 she was sent to Bordeaux, France, for repairs, but, her timbers
being badly decayed, her machinery was transferred to a new vessel of
the same name, while she herself terminated her brilliant career as a
hulk.[8]
Another steamer bearing the name _Royal William_ was despatched from
Liverpool to New York, by the Transatlantic Steamship Company, in
1838. This was a vessel of 617 tons, and 276 horse-power—the first
to make the westward voyage from Liverpool, and the first passenger
steamer to cross the sea. After a few voyages of doubtful success,
this steamer was degraded into a coal-hulk, and a much larger and
faster vessel took her place. This was the _Liverpool_—built expressly
for the Atlantic trade, with luxurious fittings for seventy or eighty
first-class passengers. She was a fine ship, of 1,150 tons burthen,
and 468 horse-power. She sailed from Liverpool, October 20th, 1838,
but had to put back to Queenstown on the 30th; sailing thence on
November 6th, she reached New York on the 23rd. After several voyages,
averaging seventeen days out and fifteen days home, she was sold to
the Peninsular and Oriental Company, and was finally wrecked off Cape
Finisterre in 1846.
In 1839 the late Sir Hugh Allan and several other Canadians made an
adventurous voyage in the _Liverpool_. Sailing from New York, December
4th, they had a succession of gales up to the 28th, when they were
scarcely half-way across the Atlantic. The chief engineer then reported
that unless things mended they would run short of coal. The chief
steward at the same time expressed grave doubts as to his provisions
holding out. A consultation having been held, it was resolved to change
their course for the Azores. They reached Fayal just as the last
shovelful of coal was thrown on the fires. Four days were spent on the
Island, during which time the passengers were treated to a round of
festivities. On arriving at Liverpool, they learned that the ship had
been given up as lost—not having been heard of since she sailed from
New York thirty-nine days before.
[Illustration: THE “SIRIUS,” 1838.]
THE “SIRIUS” AND “GREAT WESTERN.”
The departure of these steamships from England to America in 1838
marks an important epoch in the history of steam navigation, inasmuch
as the practicability of establishing a regular transatlantic steam
service was now for the first time to be clearly demonstrated. As
the _Sirius_ made only one round voyage, there is little to be said
about her beyond admiring the pluck of her owners. She was a small
vessel of about 700 tons and 320 horse-power, built at Leith for the
St. George Steam-packet Company, and had plied successfully for some
time between London and Cork. She was chartered by the then newly
formed “British and American Steam Navigation Company,” of which the
famous ship-builder, Laird, of Birkenhead, was the leading spirit. The
_Sirius_ was despatched from London for New York, _via_ Cork, whence
she sailed on April 4th, with ninety-four passengers. She arrived in
New York on the 22nd, after a successful voyage of seventeen clear
days, being commanded by Lieut. Roberts, R.N., who was afterwards lost
at sea with the ill-fated SS. _President_, in 1841. The return voyage
was made in about the same number of days as the outward trip.
The _Great Western_, designed and built by Mr. William Patterson at
Bristol, for the Great Western Steamship Company, sailed from Bristol,
April 8th, 1838, in command of Lieut. James Hoskin, R.N., and reached
New York on the 23rd, making the run in fifteen days with a consumption
of 655 tons of coal and realizing an average speed of a little over
eight knots an hour. She returned to Bristol in somewhat less than
fifteen days. A fine ship she was, of 1,340 tons and 440 horse-power,
212 feet long, and 35½ feet beam. Her best run between New York and
Bristol was made in 12½ days,[9] a remarkable record for that time.
Altogether she was admitted to be a distinct success. She was sold in
1847 for £25,000, after which she sailed regularly for ten years to
the West Indies. In the meantime the owners of the _Sirius_ had built
a much larger boat, the _British Queen_, which made her maiden voyage
from Portsmouth in 1839. After making a number of voyages to New York
this fine ship was sold to the Belgians in 1841, chiefly owing to the
collapse of the company occasioned by the loss of a sister-ship, the
_President_, which sailed from New York, March 11th of that year, and
was never afterwards heard of.
THE “GREAT BRITAIN” AND “GREAT EASTERN.”
The _Great Britain_, designed by Brunel, and built at Bristol by
Mr. Patterson, was the first iron steamship of large dimensions.
She was very large for her time, being 322 feet long, 48 feet wide,
and 31½ feet deep; her tonnage was 3,270 tons, and her engines
1,500 horse-power. As originally rigged she had six masts; she had
a six-bladed screw-propeller, 15½ feet in diameter, which made 18
revolutions per minute, giving her a maximum speed of twelve knots
an hour. A very handsome model, of prodigious strength, and a fine
sea-boat was the _Great Britain_. She commenced plying to New York,
July 26th, 1845, and was a pronounced success. On the 22nd of
September, 1846, on her outward voyage, she was stranded on the Irish
coast, and became deeply embedded in the sands of Dundrum Bay, where
she lay all winter, exposed to violent storms; but she withstood the
strain, was raised from her watery grave, was refitted and placed on
the Australian route, where she sailed successfully until 1882, when
her machinery was taken out and she closed her remarkable career as a
full-rigged sailing ship, when nearly fifty years old! and was finally
used as a coal-hulk at the Falkland Islands, where her remains are
still to be seen.
[Illustration: THE “GREAT BRITAIN,” 1845.]
[Illustration: THE “GREAT EASTERN,” 1857.]
_The Great Eastern._—The British Government having in 1853 advertised
for tenders to carry the mails to India and Australia, a number of
wealthy and scientific men formed themselves into a company called the
Eastern Steam Navigation Company, with a capital of £1,200,000, and
sent in a tender, but it was not accepted.[10] The company, however,
resolved to build a fleet of steamers, of which the _Great Eastern_ was
to be the first. Mr. Brunel, who had designed the _Great Britain_, was
selected as the architect, and Mr. Scott Russell, as the builder of the
pioneer ship. The proposal suited Mr. Brunel’s sanguine temperament,
and he recommended the building of a monster iron steamship, that
should eclipse all previous efforts in marine architecture, a vessel
that should run, say, to Ceylon at an average speed of fifteen knots,
and carry coal enough to take her out and home again. From Ceylon
smaller boats would continue the service to India and Australia. The
embodiment of Mr. Brunel’s magnificent conception was the _Great
Eastern_, skilfully wrought out, but destined to prove a gigantic
failure.
This extraordinary ship was commenced at Millwall on the Thames, in
May, 1854, and was completed in 1857, at a cost of nearly £5,000,000.
When ready for launching, her estimated weight was some 12,000 tons. As
no such load had ever before slid down the ways of a shipyard, every
precaution and appliance that skill could suggest were brought into
requisition. She was to be hauled down, broadside on, by an elaborate
arrangement of chains and stationary engines; but when the critical
moment arrived the ponderous mammoth would not budge, and it cost
something like £600,000 and constant labour for three months before
she reached her destined element. The _Great Eastern_ was 692 feet
long, 83 feet in width, and 58½ feet deep. She was reckoned at 22,500
tons burthen. Her four engines were collectively of 11,000 indicated
horse-power. She was fitted up in grand style to accommodate 4,800
passengers. As a troop-ship she could carry comfortably an army of
10,000 men in addition to her own crew of 400. She was provided with
both paddle-wheels and a screw-propeller. The wheels were fifty feet in
diameter, making twelve revolutions per minute; the four-bladed screw
was twenty-four feet in diameter, adapted for forty-five revolutions
per minute. Her estimated speed was fifteen knots, but her best average
never exceeded twelve knots. Her first voyage from Southampton to New
York was made in 10 days and 21 hours; the highest speed by the log was
fourteen and a half knots, and the greatest day’s run three hundred and
thirty-three knots. Her arrival in New York, June 27th, 1860, created a
great sensation. Fort Hamilton saluted her with a discharge of fourteen
guns—the first instance of a merchant vessel being thus honoured in
America. She returned home _via_ Halifax, making the run thence to
Milford Haven in 10 days and 4 hours. In May, 1861, she made another
voyage to New York, carrying one hundred passengers, but with no
improvement in her speed. On her return to Liverpool she was chartered
by the British Government to bring out troops to Canada. She arrived at
Quebec, July 6th, 1861, with 2,528 soldiers and forty civilians, and
during her stay there was visited by large crowds of people. Leaving
Quebec, August 6th, she reached Liverpool on the 15th. A couple more
voyages to New York, and her career as a passenger ship was ended. She
had been singularly unfortunate. Her first commander, Captain Harrison,
was drowned in the Solent by the upsetting of a small boat. On her
trial trip, by the bursting of a steam jacket, six of her crew were
killed and the ship was badly damaged. She had broken her rudder in
mid-ocean, and lay for days a helpless mass in the trough of the sea
during a gale of wind, rolling frightfully. Worse than all, she had
got on the rocks entering New York harbour, with serious damage to her
hull. The momentous question arose, What was to be done with her?
This leviathan of the deep was finally fitted up as a “cable ship,”
and for a short time did good service in that line. In 1865 she
had laid the second Atlantic cable to within a few hundred miles of
Newfoundland, when it snapped and disappeared in 1,950 fathoms of
water. Next year the _Great Eastern_ not only was the means of laying
a new cable successfully, but was the means of picking up the lost
one—a remarkable feat of seamanship and electrical skill. After laying
several other cables the big ship was tied up, never to go again. She
was eventually sold for £16,000 and broken up, a somewhat tragic ending
for such a triumph of engineering skill. But who can tell how much
the successful “liner” of to-day owes to the failure of the _Great
Eastern_? She came out ahead of time, and when the intricate art of
managing successfully the details of an ocean steamship had yet to be
learned.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, born at Portsmouth in 1806, was the son
of Sir Mark I. Brunel, a French engineer, who attained celebrity
as the architect of the Thames Tunnel, and other important works,
in which he was assisted by his son, who also became famous as the
Engineer-in-Chief of the Great Western Railroad, in the construction of
which he adopted the broad gauge (7 feet), against the remonstrances
of Stephenson and other railway authorities, and which was eventually
changed to what has become the national gauge (4 feet, 8½ inches), at
enormous expense. Mr. Brunel died in 1859. It was his misfortune to
have landed on this planet about fifty years too soon.
THE SCREW-PROPELLER.
Most people fail to find much resemblance, if any at all, between that
comparatively small-looking two or three-bladed thing that drives the
steamship through the water at the rate of twenty miles an hour, and
what is commonly known as a screw; but the discrepancy is easy of
explanation. Archimedes, who is credited with the invention of the
screw as a mechanical lever, little dreamed of the uses to which it
was to be turned two thousand years later. He is said to have employed
the screw in launching a large ship, pushing it into the water as is
now done by hydraulic appliances. By changing his fulcrum and making
the screw a part of the ship, the modern engineer has only reversed
the mode of applying propelling power; the principle is the same.
The effect produced by the screw in propelling a ship will be best
understood by supposing an ordinary screw of large dimensions to be
revolving rapidly in a trough full of water. It would then send the
water away from it with great force; but as action and reaction are
equal it would be itself, at the same time, urged in the opposite
direction with exactly the same degree of force. If we suppose it,
then, to be fixed in a ship, the ship will be pushed forward with the
same force that is exerted by the screw in pushing back against the
water. If the screw is made to revolve in the opposite direction, the
converse of this takes place, and the ship is pushed backwards by the
reaction of the screw.[11] The idea has long occupied the attention
of inventive genius. As far back as 1746, at least, the capabilities
of the screw as a motive power for ships have been tested by
experiments. In 1770 James Watt, who had so much to do with perfecting
the steam-engine, suggested the use of screw-propellers. In 1815
Trevethick took out a patent for one. Woodcroft did the same in 1826;
but it was not until ten years later that its utility was successfully
demonstrated.
In 1836 Captain John Ericsson, a Swede, then residing in London, and
Mr. T. P. Smith, of the same place, almost simultaneously had each
small boats built for the purpose of testing the screw. Ericsson’s
boat, named the _Francis B. Ogden_, was 45 feet long and 8 feet beam,
and was fitted with two screw-propellers attached to the same shaft.
The first experiment made on the Thames was successful beyond all
expectation, for he towed the Admiralty barge, with a number of their
Lordships on board, from Somerset House to Blackwall and back, at the
rate of ten miles an hour. Smith’s boat was equally successful, the
immediate result being the formation of a joint stock company, called
the Screwship Propeller Company, who bought out Mr. Smith’s patent
and proceeded to build the _Archimedes_, a vessel of 237 tons, and 80
horse-power. Smith’s original propeller was a genuine screw, with two
whole turns of the thread, made to revolve rapidly under water in the
dead-wood of the vessel’s run. In the meantime, about 1838, Mr. James
Lowe obtained a patent for an important modification of the elongated
screw-propeller. This consisted in making use of curved blades, each
a portion of a curve, which, if continued, would form a complete
screw. The “pitch of the screw ” being the whole length along the
spindle shaft of one complete turn of the screw, if fully developed,
it was found that by reducing the pitch to a segment of the screw
and increasing the diameter, the propeller could be reduced to more
convenient dimensions.
The success of the _Archimedes_ at length induced the Admiralty to
make trial of the screw in the Royal Navy. The first _Rattler_ was
built in 1841, and fitted with a screw-propeller. In 1842 the United
States Government made a similar experiment with the _Princeton_,
and in the following year the French Government built the screw
war-ship, _Pomone_.[12] In each case the verdict was favourable to the
introduction of the screw in preference to the paddle-wheel. The second
_Rattler_, of 880 tons and 496 horse-power, was built and fitted with
a screw-propeller, and attained a speed of 9¼ knots on her trial trip,
September 5th, 1851. That settled the question in so far as the Royal
Navy was concerned. In the mercantile marine the _Great Britain_ was
the first ship of large dimensions in which the screw was adopted. For
many years there continued to be a strong prejudice against it, though
it was destined eventually to entirely supersede the paddle on the
ocean.
In order to prevent the screw “racing,” which often occurs in heavy
weather, to the discomfort of passengers and the annoyance of
engineers, a system of raising and lowering the propeller has been
tried somewhat extensively in the navy and also in the mercantile
service, but it has been practically abandoned since the twin screws
have come into general use, by which the difficulty alluded to has been
largely overcome.
[Illustration: A MYTHICAL WIND-BOAT, FROM AN OLD ENGRAVING (1805).]
FOOTNOTES:
[7] “Our Ocean Railways,” p. 69.
[8] Sufficient importance was attached to this matter to cause
the two Houses of Parliament, in Ottawa, to order a brass tablet,
commemorative of the event, to be placed in the corridor of the Library
of Parliament. The tablet, of which a facsimile is presented in our
frontispiece, was unveiled with fitting ceremony by His Excellency
the Governor-General, on the occasion of the opening of the Colonial
Conference, June 28th, 1894.—_Vide_: “The Journals of the Colonial
Conference” (_Appendix_); “Journal of the House of Commons,” 1894;
“Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada.”
[9] Others say 10½ days.
[10] Fry’s “History of Steam Navigation,” p. 182.
[11] Encyclopedia Britannica, 8th Ed., Vol. xx, p. 657.
[12] “Our Ocean Railways,” p. 75.