MORE STEAMBOATING
The night before Thanksgiving Mr. Ackerman and Dick arrived at Coventry
and it was difficult to believe the change wrought in the New York boy.
Not only was his face round, rosy and radiant with happiness but along
with a new manliness had stolen a gentler bearing and a courtesy that
had not been there when he had set forth to school.
"Why, you must have put on ten pounds, Dick!" cried Mr. Tolman, shaking
hands with his young guest after greeting the steamboat magnate.
"It is eleven pounds, sir," laughed Dick. "We have bully eats at school
and all you want of them."
The final phrase had a reminiscent ring as if it harked back to a time
when three ample meals were a mirage of the imagination.
"Well, I am glad to hear you have done justice to them and encouraged
the cook," was Mr. Tolman's jocular reply. "Now while you stay here you
must cheer on our cook in the same fashion. If you don't we shall think
you like New Haven better."
"I guess there is no danger of that," put in Mr. Ackerman. "Dick seems
hollow down to his ankles. There is no filling him up; is there, boy?"
"I couldn't eat that third ice-cream you offered me yesterday," was the
humorous retort.
"I hope you've saved some room for to-morrow's dinner," Mrs. Tolman
interrupted, "for there will be mince pie and plum pudding and I don't
know what not. And then there is the turkey--we ordered an extra large
one on purpose."
Dick and Steve exchanged a sheepish grin.
"Well, it is jolly to see you good people," Mr. Tolman declared, as he
ushered the visitors into the living room, where a bright fire burned on
the hearth. "Our boys have done well, haven't they, Ackerman? I don't
know which is to win the scholarship race--the steamboats or the
railroads."
"We could compare marks," Stephen suggested.
"That would hardly be fair," Mr. Ackerman objected quickly, "for the
steamboats did not start even with the railroads in this contest. Dick
has had to put in a lot of hours with a tutor to make up for the work he
missed at the beginning of the year. He has been compelled to bone down
like a beaver to go ahead with his class; but he has succeeded, haven't
you, sonny?"
"I hope I have," was the modest retort.
"Furthermore," went on Mr. Ackerman, "there are other things beside
scholarship to be considered in this bargain. We want fine, manly boys
as well as wise ones. Conduct counts for a great deal, you know."
Stephen felt himself coloring.
"There have been no black marks on Dick's record thus far. How about
yours, Steve?" asked the New York man.
"I--er--no. I haven't had any black marks, either," responded Stephen,
with a gulp of shame.
"That is splendid, isn't it!" commented Mr. Ackerman. "I wasn't looking
for them. You have too fine a father to be anything but a square boy."
Once more Stephen knew himself to be blushing. If they would only talk
about something else!
"Are you going to finish your steamboat story for us while you are
here?" inquired he with sudden inspiration.
"Why, I had not thought of doing any steamboating down here," laughed
the capitalist. "Rather I came to help the Pilgrims celebrate their
first harvest."
"But even they had to come to America by boat," suggested Doris
mischievously.
"I admit that," owned the New Yorker. "And what is more, they probably
would have come in a steamboat if one had been running at the time."
"What was the first American steamship to cross the Atlantic, Ackerman?"
questioned Mr. Tolman when they were all seated before the library fire.
"I suppose the _Savannah_ had that distinction," was the reply. "She was
built in New York in 1818 to be used as a sailing packet; but she had
side wheels and an auxiliary engine, and although she did not make the
entire trans-Atlantic distance by steam she did cover a part of it
under steam power. Her paddle wheels, it is interesting to note, were so
constructed that they could be unshipped and taken aboard when they were
not in use, or when the weather was rough. I believe it took her
twenty-seven days to make the trip from Savannah to Liverpool and eighty
hours of that time she was using her engine. Although she made several
trips in safety it was quite a while before the American public was
sufficiently convinced of the value of steam to build other steamships.
A few small ones appeared in our harbors, it is true, but they came from
Norway or England; they made much better records, too, than anything
previously known, the _Sirius_ crossing in 1838 in nineteen days, and
the _Great Western_ in fifteen. In the meantime shipbuilders on both
sides of the Atlantic were studying the steamboat problem and busy
brains in Nova Scotia and on the Clyde were working out an answer to the
puzzle. One of the most alert of these brains belonged to Samuel Cunard,
the founder of the steamship line that has since become world famous. In
May, 1840, through his instrumentality, the _Unicorn_ set out from
England for Boston arriving in the harbor June third after a voyage of
sixteen days. When we reflect that she was a wooden side-wheeler, not
much larger than one of our tugboats, we marvel that she ever put in her
appearance. Tidings of her proposed trip had already preceded her, and
when after much anxious watching she was sighted there was the greatest
enthusiasm along the water front, the over-zealous populace who wished
to give her a royal welcome setting off a six-pounder in her honor that
shattered to atoms most of her stained glass as she tied up at the
dock."
His audience laughed.
"You see," continued the capitalist, "the ship came in answer to a
circular sent out by our government to various shipbuilders asking bids
from swift and reliable boats to carry our mails to England. Cunard
immediately saw the commercial advantages of such an opportunity, and
not having money enough to back the venture himself the Halifax man went
to Scotland where he met Robert Napier, a person who like himself had
had wide experience in shipping affairs. Both men were enthusiastic over
the project; before long the money necessary for the undertaking was
raised, and the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet
Company, with a line of four ships, was awarded the United States
Government contract. These ships were very significantly named: the
_Britannia_ in honor of England, the _Arcadia_ as a compliment to Mr.
Cunard's Nova Scotia home, the _Caledonia_ in memory of Napier's Scotch
ancestry, and the _Columbia_ out of regard to America. And in passing it
is rather interesting to recall that in homage to these pioneer ships it
has become a tradition of the Cunard Line to use names that terminate in
the letter _a_ for all the ships that have followed them. For, you must
remember, it was this modest group of steam packets that were the
ancestors of such magnificent boats as the _Mauretania_ and
_Lusitania_."
"There was some difference!" interrupted Stephen.
"Well, rather! Had you, however, told Samuel Cunard then that such
mammoth floating hotels were possible he would probably not have
believed you. He had task enough on his hands to carry the mails;
transport the few venturesome souls that dared to cross the sea; and
compete with the many rival steamship lines that sprang up on both sides
of the ocean as soon as some one had demonstrated that trans-Atlantic
travel was practical. For after Cunard had blazed the path there were
plenty of less daring persons ready to steal from him the fruits of his
vision and courage. From 1847 to 1857 the Ocean Steamship Company
carried mails between New York and Bremen, and there was a very popular
line that ran from New York to Havre, up to the period of the Civil War.
Among the individual ships none, perhaps, was more celebrated than the
_Great Eastern_, a vessel of tremendous length, and one that more nearly
approached our present-day liners as to size. Then there was the Collins
Line that openly competed with the Cunard Line; and to further increase
trans-Atlantic travel, in 1855 Cornelius Vanderbilt, ever at the fore in
novel projects, began operating lines of steamships not only to England
and France but to Bremen."
Mr. Ackerman paused a moment.
"By 1871 there was an American line between Philadelphia and Liverpool.
In the meantime, ever since 1861, there had been a slow but steady
advance in ocean shipbuilding. Although iron ships had gradually
replaced wooden ones the side-wheeler was still in vogue, no better
method of locomotion having been discovered. When the change from this
primitive device to the screw propeller came it was a veritable leap in
naval architecture. Now revolutions in any direction seldom receive a
welcome and just as the conservatives had at first hooted down the idea
of iron ships, asserting they would never float, so they now decried the
use of the screw propeller. Indeed there was no denying that this
innovation presented to shipbuilders a multitude of new and balking
problems. While the clipper ships had greatly improved the designs of
vessels the stern was still their weakest point and now, in addition to
this already existing difficulty, came the new conundrums presented by
the pitch, or full turn of the thread, in the screw propeller; also the
churning of the current produced by the rapidly whirling wheel, which
was found to retard the speed of the ship very materially. Valiantly
engineers wrestled with one after another of these enigmas until they
conquered them and put shipbuilding on the upward path where it has been
ever since. In time steel ships replaced the cruder vessels of iron;
finer types of engines were worked out; the wireless and the many
electrical devices which herald approaching foes and announce the
presence of icebergs have been invented; until now the ocean liner is
practically safe from all perils except fogs, icebergs and submarines."
He stopped a moment with eyes fixed on the glowing logs that crackled on
the hearth.
"Meanwhile," he went on, "comfort aboard ship has progressed to luxury.
Better systems of ventilation, more roomy sleeping quarters, more
windows and improved lighting facilities have been installed. The
general arrangement of the ship has also been vastly improved since the
days when the high bulwark and long deckhouse were in use. Now iron
railings allow the sea to wash back and forth in time of storm, and in
consequence there is less danger of vessels being swamped by the waves.
Then there are watertight doors and bulkheads, double bottoms to the
hulls, and along with these more practical advances have come others of
a more healthful and artistic trend. The furniture is better; the
decoration of the cabins and saloons prettier and more harmonious; there
has been more hygienic sanitation. When the _Oceanic_ of the White Star
Line was built in 1870 she had a second deck, and this novel feature was
adopted broadcast and eventually ushered in the many-deck liners now in
use. The _Servia_, built in 1881, was the first steel ship and the
advantage of its greater elasticity was instantly seen. Builders were
wise enough to grasp the fact that with the increasing length of
vessels steel ships would be able to stand a greater strain. Little by
little the gain went on in every direction. Nevertheless, in spite of
the intelligence of the shipbuilders, it was long before trans-Atlantic
navigators had the courage to trust themselves entirely to their engines
and discard masts; although they shifted to steel ones instead of those
of iron or wood, they still persisted in carrying them."
He smiled as he spoke.
"When the twin-screw propeller made its appearance it brought with it
greater speed and there was a revival of the old racing spirit. Between
the various shipping lines of all nations the contest for size and
swiftness has raged ever since. Before the Great War, Germany had a very
extensive collection of large and rapid liners, many of them built on
the Clyde, that fought to surpass the Cunard ships. The White Star Line
also took a hand in the game and built others. In the contest, alas,
America has been far behind until gradually she has let other countries
slip in and usurp the major proportion of ocean commerce. It is a
pitiful thing that we should not have applied our skill and wealth of
material to building fine American steamship lines of our own instead of
letting so many of our tourists turn their patronage to ships of foreign
nations. Perhaps if the public were not so eager for novelty, and so
constantly in search for the newest, the largest and the fastest boats,
we should be content to make our crossings in the older and less gaudy
ships, which after all are quite as seaworthy. But we Americans must
always have the superlative, and therefore many a steamer has had to be
scrapped simply because it had no palm gardens, no swimming pools, no
shore luxuries. We have not, however, wholly neglected naval
construction for we have many fine steamships, a praiseworthy lot of
battleships and cruisers and some very fine submarines. I hope and
believe that the time will come when our merchant marine will once again
stand at the front as it did in the days of the clipper ships. Our
commerce reaches out to every corner of the earth and why should we rely
on other countries to transport our goods?"
"I suppose there are no pirates now, are there, Mr. Ackerman?" asked
Dick, raising his eyes expectantly to the capitalist's face.
"I am afraid there are very few, Dick boy," returned the elder man
kindly. "I suppose that is somewhat of a disappointment to you. You
would have preferred to sail the seas in the days when every small liner
carried her guns as a defence against raiders and was often forced to
use them, too. But when international law began to regulate traffic on
the high seas and the ocean thoroughfare ceased to be such a deserted
one pirates went out of fashion, and every nation was granted equal
rights to sail the seas unmolested. It was because this freedom was
menaced by German submarines in the late war and our privilege to travel
by water threatened that our nation refused to tolerate such
conditions. A code of humane laws that had been established for the
universal good was being broken and we could not permit it. For you must
remember that now there are almost as many laws on the ocean as on the
land. There are rules for all kinds of vessels, of which there are a far
greater variety than perhaps you realize. Not only have we steamships,
cruisers, and battleships but we have schooners, barques, brigs,
tugboats, dredgers, oil-tankers, turret ships for freight, cargo boats,
steam tramps, coalers, produce ships, ice-breakers, train ferries, steam
trawlers, fire boats, river boats, harbor excursion boats, coasters,
whalebacks, steam yachts, launches and lake steamers. Each of these is
carefully classified and has its particular traffic rules, and in
addition to these is obliged to obey certain other general marine laws
to which all of them are subject, in order that travel by water may be
made safe."
"Don't all ships have to be inspected, too?" asked Stephen.
"Yes; and not only are they inspected but to protect the lives of their
passengers and crew, as well as preserve their cargo, they must adhere
to specified conditions. The number of passengers and crew is regulated
by law, as is the amount of the cargo. Ocean liners, for example, must
have aboard a certain number of lifeboats, rafts, belts, life
preservers, fire extinguishers, lines of hose; and the size of all these
is carefully designated. There must be frequent drills in manning the
boats; the fire hose must be tested to see that it works and is in
proper condition; and in thick weather the foghorns must be sounded at
regular intervals. There is no such thing now as going to sea in
haphazard fashion and trusting to luck. Everything that can be done for
the safety of those who travel the ocean must be done."
He paused a moment, then added:
"And in the meanwhile, that every protection possible shall be offered
to ships, we have been as busy on the land as on the water and have
established a code of laws to govern our coasts, harbors and rivers.
Government surveys have charted the shores of all countries so that now
there are complete maps that give not only the coast line but also the
outlying islands, rocks and shoals that might be a menace to ships. It
is no longer possible for a State bordering on the sea to put up a low
building at the water's edge and set a few candles in the windows as was
done back in the year eighteen hundred."
Both the boys laughed.
"We can laugh now," assented Mr. Ackerman with a smile, "but in those
days I fancy it was no laughing matter. Even with all our up-to-date
devices there are wrecks; and think of the ships that must have gone
down before charts were available, lighthouses and bell buoys in vogue,
wireless signals invented and the coast patrol in operation. I shudder
to picture it. Sailing the seas was a perilous undertaking then, I
assure you. Even the first devices for safety were primitive. The
Argand lamp of 1812 was not at all powerful and the lenses used were far
from perfect. Foghorns were operated by hand or by horse power and were
not strong enough to be heard at any great distance. Bell buoys were
unknown although there were such things as bell-boats which were
anchored in dangerous spots and rung by the wash of the waves. There
were lightships, too, but more often than not their feeble light was
obscured or unnoticed and they were run down by the ships they sought to
protect. Altogether there was room for improvement at every point and
slowly but surely it came. After the Daboll trumpet, whistle and siren
had been tried finer horns operated by steam or power engines supplanted
them until now all along our coasts and inland streams signals of
specified strength have been installed, a commission deciding just what
size signals shall be used and where they shall be placed. There are
lighthouses of prescribed candle power; automatic flashlights and
whistling buoys; coastguard stations with carefully drilled crews; all
regulated by law and matters of compulsion. If men and ships are lost
now it is because it is beyond human power to help it."
"There are facts about the water that are impossible to modify,"
interrupted Mr. Tolman, "and I suppose we shall never be able wholly to
eliminate the dangers growing out of them. There are for example silence
zones where, because of the nature of air currents or atmospheric
conditions, no sounds can be heard. Often a foghorn comparatively near
at hand will belch forth its warning and its voice be swallowed up in
this strange stillness. Many a calamity has occurred that could only be
accounted for in this way. Man is ingenious, it is true, but he is not
omniscient and in the face of some of the caprices of nature he is
powerless."
Mr. Ackerman rose and stood with his back to the fire.
"And now," went on Mr. Tolman, addressing Stephen and Dick, "I should
say you two had had quite a lecture on steamboating and should move that
you both go to bed."
Quickly Mr. Ackerman interrupted him.
"I should amend the motion by suggesting that we all go to bed," laughed
he. "I am quite as tired as the boys are."
The amendment was passed, the motion carried, and soon the entire Tolman
family was wrapped in sleep.