STEAMSHIPS AND THEIR STORY
[Illustration: THE WHITE STAR LINER “OLYMPIC”
(_Drawn by Charles Dixon, R.I._)]
STEAMSHIPS
AND THEIR STORY
BY
E. KEBLE CHATTERTON
Author of “Sailing Ships and Their Story”
WITH 153 ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration]
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD.
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1910
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PREFACE
The exceptionally kind reception on the part of both Press and public
which greeted the appearance of my history of the sailing ship last
year, and the numerous expressions of appreciation that have reached
me from so many parts of the world, have encouraged me to attempt in a
similar manner to set out the story of the steamship from the earliest
times to the present day.
I am by no means unaware that between the sailing ship and the
steamship there is a wide difference, as well in character as in their
respective development. But that is no reason for supposing that the
steamship is less interesting in her history or less deserving of
admiration in her final presentation. Around the sailing ship there
hovers eternally a halo of romance; that is undeniable even by the
most modern enthusiast. But, on the other hand, the sailing ship in
the whole of her career has not done more for the good of humanity
than the steamship within a century or less. It requires but a moment
of thought to realise the truth of this statement; and for that reason
alone, the history of the steamship makes its appeal not to a special
class of reader, but to all who interest themselves in progress, in
the development of their own country and empire, in the welfare of
the world generally, and the evolution from stagnation to beneficial
activity and prosperity. There are but few civilised people nowadays
who have not been brought into contact with the steamship in one way
or another. Perhaps sometimes it has been unwillingly, though at
other times to their great gain. In some of those moments which have
seemed to drag on wearily during the enforced idleness of a voyage,
the inquiring mind has over and over again exhibited a desire to
know something of the nature of the fine creature which is carrying
him from one distant country to another. He has desired to know in
plain, non-technical language, how the steamship idea began; how it
developed; how its progress was modified, and what were the influences
at work that moulded its character as we know it to-day. Further, he
has felt the desire to show an intelligent interest in her various
characteristics and to obtain a fair grasp of the principles which
underlay the building and working of the steamship. As a normal being
himself, with mind and sympathy, he has wished to be able to enter into
the difficulties that have been overcome so splendidly by the skill
and enterprise of others, both past and present. If he talks to the
professional sailor or marine engineer, they may not, even if they have
the inclination to unbend, be able easily to separate their explanation
from the vesture of technicality, and the inquirer is scarcely less
satisfied than before. It is, then, with a view of supplying this want
that I have aimed to write such a book as will interest without, I
trust, wearying, the general reader.
The plan on which I have worked has been to give the historical
continuity of the steamship from the most reliable and authoritative
material obtainable, and to supplement and correct a number of false
statements by comparison with the latest researches. At the same
time, my object has been not merely to ensure absolute historical
accuracy, but to show how in a special manner and peculiar to itself
the steamship is every bit as romantic, and equally deserving of
our affectionate regard, as her predecessor the sailing ship, whose
sphere of utility she has succeeded so materially in limiting. After
having been brought safe and sound through gales of wind, across many
thousands of miles of ocean, past cruel coast, and through treacherous
channels, until at last the fairway and the harbour of safety have
been reached, no one who has any heart at all can step ashore without
feeling that he is parting from one of the noblest and best friends
that a man ever had. True, there are some people, as an officer on one
of the crack liners once remarked to me, who, as soon as ever the big
ship is tied up alongside the landing-stage, hurry ashore from her as
if she were a plague-ship. But such, let us hope, are the few rather
than representative of the majority who have been brought into intimate
relationship with the steamship.
Nor only to the history and the glamour of the great steam-driven
vessel have I confined myself. The sea is not merely a wide ocean, but
contains within its mighty bosom many smaller areas such as channels
and bays wherein the steamboat is able to ply as well for pleasure as
for profit; and besides the big, brave sisters with their enormous
displacement and their powerful engines, there are other children which
run across smaller sea-ways, and these, too, are not to be passed
over lightly. Then there are fleets of special steamships which in a
quiet, unostentatious manner do their noble work, and are none the less
efficient, even if they escape the limelight of general publicity. I
shall seek to show in the following pages not merely the conditions
which in the past have hindered or helped the ship-maker, but to
indicate the modern problems which have still to be faced and overcome.
The difficulty that awaits an author who writes on a technical
subject for the benefit of the non-technical, average reader, is
always to make himself intelligible without being allowed the full
use of the customary but technical terms. In order that, as far
as possible, the present volume may be both a full and accurate
account of the steamship, in all times and in all the phases of her
development, whilst yet being capable of appreciation by those to whom
technicalities do not usually appeal, I have endeavoured whensoever
possible to explain the terms employed.
The story of the steamship may at the first mention seem to be bereft
of any interest beyond that which appeals to an expert in marine
engineering. Pipes and boilers and engines, you are told, are not
suggestive of romance. To this one might reply that neither were sails
and spars during the first stages of their history; and I shall hope
that after he has been so kind as to read the following pages, the
reader may feel disposed to withdraw the suggestion that the steamship
is a mere inanimate mass of metal. On the contrary, she is as nearly
human as it is possible to made a steel shell, actuated by ingenious
machinery; and, after all, it is the human mind and hand which have
brought her into being, and under which she is kept continuously in
control. It would be surprising, therefore, since she has been and
continues to be related so closely to humanity, if she should not
exhibit some of the characteristics which a human possesses.
It is fitting that the history of the steamship should be written at
this time, for if final perfection has not yet arrived, it cannot be
very far distant. It is but three or four years since the _Lusitania_
and _Mauretania_ came into being, and only during the present year
have they shown themselves to possess such exceptional speed for
merchant ships. On the 20th of October, 1910, will be launched the
_Olympic_, whose size will dominate even the _Mauretania_. Much further
than a 45,000-ton ship, surely, it cannot be possible to go; and the
likelihood is that with the commercial steamship’s manifested ability
to steam at the rate of over thirty-one land miles per hour, we are
in sight of the limitations which encompass her. As to the future of
transport, changes happen so quickly, and possess so revolutionary a
character, that it is hardly safe to prophesy; but it is significant
that the week before this preface was written, an aeroplane succeeded
in flying, in perfect ease and safety, the 150 miles which separate
Albany from New York; and thus, just a century after Fulton had
convinced the incredulous by traversing the same course through water
in his steamship, the latest means of travelling from one place to
another has caused to look insignificant the wonderful record which
Fulton, in his _Clermont_, was the first to set up. If, then, as will
be seen from this volume, the steamship has done so much within a
hundred years, what, we may legitimately ask, will be accomplished by
the airship or aeroplane before another century has come to an end?
Those who have the temerity to give expression to their opinions,
suggest that the steamship will ultimately be made obsolete by the
flying craft. If that be a true forecast, it is perhaps as well that
the steamship’s story should be told here and now whilst yet she is at
her prime.
Of the matter contained within this volume, much has been obtained
at first hand, but much has also been derived from the labours of
others, and herewith I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness. I would
especially wish to mention in this connection: “A Chronological History
of the Origin and Development of Steam Navigation, 1543–1882,” by
Geo. Henry Preble, Rear-Admiral U.S.N. (1883); certain articles in
the “Dictionary of National Biography”; “Ancient and Modern Ships:
Part II., The Era of Steam, Iron and Steel,” by Sir George C. V.
Holmes, K.C.V.O., C.B. (1906); “The Clyde Passenger Steamer: Its Rise
and Progress,” by Captain James Williamson (1904); “The History of
American Steam Navigation,” by John H. Morrison (1903); “The History of
North Atlantic Steam Navigation,” by Henry Fry (1896); “The American
Merchant Marine,” by W. L. Martin (1902); “The Atlantic Ferry: Its
Ships, Men, and Working,” by Arthur J. Maginnis (London, 1893); “Ocean
Liners of the World,” by W. Bellows (1896); “Life of Robert Napier,”
by James Napier (1904); “Handbook on Marine Engines and Boilers,” by
Sir G. C. V. Holmes (1889); “The Royal Yacht Squadron,” by Montague
Guest and W. B. Boulton (1903); “The Rise and Progress of Steam
Navigation,” by W. J. Millar (1881); “Practical Shipbuilding,” by
A. Campbell Holms; “The Boy’s Book of Steamships,” by J. R. Howden
(1908); “The Steam Turbine,” by R. M. Neilson (1903); “Our Ocean
Railways, or Ocean Steam Navigation,” by A. Macdonald (1893); “Life
of R. Fulton and a History of Steam Navigation,” by T. Wallace Knox
(1887); “Life on the Mississippi,” by Mark Twain; “American Notes,” by
Charles Dickens; “The Orient Line Guide,” by W. J. Loftie (1901); “The
History of the Holyhead Railway Boat Service,” by Clement E. Stretton
(1901); the “Catalogue of the Naval and Marine Engineering Collection
in the Science Division of the Victoria and Albert Museum, South
Kensington” (1899); “Catalogue of the Mechanical Engineering Collection
in the Science Division” of the above (1907); “The Progress of German
Shipbuilding” (1909); “Leibnizens und Huygens Briefwechsel mit Papin,”
by G. W. Von Leibnitz (1881); “British Shipbuilding,” by A. L. Ayre
(1910); “Lloyd’s Calendar.” In addition to the above, I have laid
myself under obligation to a number of articles which have appeared
at one time and another in the newspapers and periodicals within the
last century, and especially to certain contributions in the _Century
Magazine_, the _Yachting Monthly_, the _Engineer_ and in _Engineering_.
For the rest, I have relied on material which I have myself collected,
as well as on much valuable matter which has been courteously supplied
to me by the various shipbuilding firms and steamship lines.
My thanks are also due for the courteous permission which has been
given to reproduce photographs of many of the steamships seen within
these pages. To the authorities at South Kensington I am indebted for
the privilege of reproducing a number of the exhibits in the Victoria
and Albert Museum. I wish also to thank the City of Dublin Steam
Packet Company for permission to reproduce the _Royal William_; Mr.
James Napier for the illustration of the _British Queen_; the Cunard
Steamship Company for the various photographs of many of their fleet;
also the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, the Peninsular and Oriental
Steam Navigation Company, Messrs. Ismay, Imrie and Co., Messrs.
Anderson, Anderson and Co., the American Line, the Norddeutscher Lloyd
Company, the Liverpool Steam Towing and Lighterage Company, Messrs.
L. Smit and Co., the Ymuiden Tug Company, Messrs. Lobnitz and Co.,
Renfrew, the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, Liverpool, Sir W. G.
Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., Messrs. William Doxford and Sons, Sir
Raylton Dixon and Co., Messrs. Cochrane and Sons, Selby, the Fall
River Line, Messrs. A. and J. Inglis, Messrs. Thos. Rhodes and Co.,
the Caledon Shipbuilding and Engineering Co., Messrs. Camper and
Nicholson, Messrs. Cammell, Laird and Co., the Great Western Railway
Company, the London and North Western Railway Company, the London and
South Western Railway Company, the South Eastern and Chatham Railway
Company, Messrs. Harland and Wolff, and Messrs. C. A. Parsons and Co.
To the Right Hon. the Earl of Stanhope, to the New Jersey Historical
Society, and also to the proprietors of the _Century Magazine_ I wish
to return thanks for being allowed to reproduce certain illustrations
connected with Fulton’s early experiments in steam navigation, and to
the _Yachting Monthly_ for permission to reproduce the diagrams of
steam yachts and lifeboats.
Finally, I have to apologise if through any cause it should be found
that in spite of extreme carefulness errrors should have found their
way into this narrative. The nature of the subject is necessarily such
that to have erred herein would have been easy, but I have been at
great pains to prevent such a possibility occurring.
E. KEBLE CHATTERTON.
_June, 1910._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
1. INTRODUCTION 1
2. THE EVOLUTION OF MECHANICALLY-PROPELLED CRAFT 12
3. THE EARLY PASSENGER STEAMSHIPS 63
4. THE INAUGURATION OF THE LINER 104
5. THE LINER IN HER TRANSITION STATE 145
6. THE COMING OF THE TWIN-SCREW STEAMSHIP 165
7. THE MODERN MAMMOTH STEAMSHIP 183
8. SMALLER OCEAN CARRIERS AND CROSS-CHANNEL STEAMERS 215
9. STEAMSHIPS FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES 233
10. THE STEAM YACHT 266
11. THE BUILDING OF THE STEAMSHIP 282
12. THE SAFETY AND LUXURY OF THE PASSENGER 297
13. SOME STEAMSHIP PROBLEMS 309
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_Page_
The “Olympic” _Frontispiece_
Hero’s Steam Apparatus 18
Jonathan Hulls’ Steam Tug Boat 30
The Marquis de Jouffroy’s Steamboat 40
Patrick Miller’s Double-hulled Paddle-boat 42
Symington’s First Marine Engine 42
Outline of Fitch’s First Boat 45
The “Charlotte Dundas” 46
The “Clermont” in 1807 46
Fulton’s design for a Steamboat submitted to the Commission
appointed by Napoleon in 1803 51
Fulton’s First Plans for Steam Navigation 57
Fulton’s design of Original Apparatus for determining the
Resistance of Paddles for the propulsion of the “Clermont,”
dated 1806 64
The Reconstructed “Clermont” at the Hudson-Fulton Celebrations,
1909 70
Paddle-wheel of the Reconstructed “Clermont” 70
Fulton’s Preliminary Study for the Engine of the “Clermont” 75
Fulton’s plans of a later Steamboat than the “Clermont-North-
River,” showing application of the square side connecting
rod Engine 77
The “Comet” 78
Engine of the “Comet” 78
S.S. “Elizabeth” (1815) 84
Russian Passenger Steamer (1817) 84
The “Prinzessin Charlotte” (1816) 90
The “Savannah” (1819) 90
The “James Watt” (1821) 94
Side-Lever Engines of the “Ruby” (1836) 94
The “Sirius” (1838) 96
The “Royal William” (1838) 96
The “Great Western” (1838) 100
Paddle-wheel of the “Great Western” 100
The “British Queen” (1839) 102
The “Britannia,” the First Atlantic Liner (1840) 102
The “Teviot” and “Clyde” (1841) 110
Side-lever Engine 110
Launch of the “Forth” (1841) 112
The “William Fawcett” and H.M.S. “Queen” (1829) 112
Designs for Screw Propellers prior to 1850 118
The “Robert F. Stockton” (1838) 120
The “Archimedes” (1839) 120
Stern of the “Archimedes” 122
The “Novelty” (1839) 122
The “Great Britain” (1843) 126
Propeller of the “Great Britain” 126
Engines of the “Great Britain” 128
Engines of the “Helen McGregor” 128
The “Scotia” (1862) 130
The “Pacific” (1853) 130
Maudslay’s Oscillating Engine. 132
Engines of the “Candia” 132
The “Victoria” (1852) 134
The “Himalaya” (1853) 134
Coasting Cargo Steamer (1855) 134
The “Great Eastern” (1858) 138
Paddle Engines of the “Great Eastern” 140
Screw Engines of the “Great Eastern” 140
The “City of Paris” (1866) 148
The “Russia” (1867) 148
The “Oceanic” (1870) 152
The “Britannic” (1874) 154
The “Servia” (1881) 154
The “Umbria” (1884) 158
The “Orient” (1879) 158
The “Austral” (1881) 162
The “Victoria” (1887) 162
The “Majestic” (1889) 162
The “City of Paris” (1893) (now the “Philadelphia”) 166
The “Ophir” (1891) 166
The “Lucania” (1893) 170
The “Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse” (1897) 174
The “Oceanic” (1899) 176
The “Cedric” 176
The “Celtic” 178
The “Kaiser Wilhelm II.” 180
Giovanni Branca’s Steam Engine (1629) 184
The Blades of a Parsons Turbine 185
The Parsons Turbine 186
The “Carmania” (1905) 188
Lower half of the fixed portion of one of the “Carmania’s”
Turbines 188
A Study in Comparisons: the “Magnetic” and “Baltic” 192
The “Mauretania” when completing at Wallsend-on-Tyne 198
Stern of the “Mauretania” 200
The “Lusitania” 202
The “Adriatic” 206
The “George Washington” 208
The “Berlin” 208
The “Laurentic” on the Stocks 210
The “Mooltan” 216
The Starting Platform in the Engine Room of the “Mooltan” 218
The “Balmoral Castle” 220
The “Cambria” (1848) 222
Engines of the “Leinster” (1860) 222
The “Atalanta” (1841) 226
The “Lyons” (1856) 226
The “Empress” leaving Dover Harbour 226
The Ocean Tug “Blackcock” 234
The Passenger Tender “Sir Francis Drake” 234
The 7,000 ton Floating Dry-dock under tow by the “Roode Zee”
and “Zwarte Zee” 236
The Salvage Tug “Admiral de Ruyter” 238
The New York Harbour and River Tug Boat “Edmund Moran” 238
The Paddle-Tug “Dromedary” 240
The Bucket Dredger “Peluse” 240
The Suction Dredger “Leviathan” 242
The “Vigilant” 242
The Telegraph Steamer “Monarch” 244
Deck View of the Telegraph Ship “Faraday” 244
The “Silverlip” 246
Section of Modern Oil-tank Steamer 246
The Turret-ship “Inland” 248
Midship Section of a Turret-ship 248
Cantilever Framed Ship 250
The North Sea Trawler “Orontes” 252
The Steam Trawler “Notre Dame des Dunes” 252
Hydraulic Lifeboat 255
A Screw Lifeboat 257
The “Inez Clarke” 258
The “Natchez” and the “Eclipse” (1855) 258
The “Empire” 258
The “Commonwealth” 262
Beam Engine of an American River Steamer 262
The “City of Cleveland” 264
An American “Whale-back” Steamer 264
Typical Steam Yacht of about 1890 271
A Steam Yacht of To-day 275
The Russian Imperial Yacht “Livadia” 276
The Royal Yacht “Victoria and Albert” 278
The Royal Yacht “Alexandra” 278
The S.Y. “Sagitta” 280
The S.Y. “Triad” 280
“Flush-decked” Type 283
“Three Island” Type 283
“Top-gallant Forecastle” Type 284
“Top-gallant Forecastle” Type, with raised quarter-deck 284
Early “Well-deck” Type 284
“Well-deck” Type 285
“Spar-deck” Type 285
“Awning-deck” Type 286
“Shade-deck” Type 286
The Building of the “Mauretania” (showing floor and part of
frames) 286
The “George Washington” in course of Construction 288
Bows of the “Berlin” in course of Construction 290
The “Berlin” just before her Launch 290
Stern frame of the “Titanic,” February 9, 1910 292
The Shelter Deck of the “Orsova” in course of Construction 292_a_
One of the Decks of the “Lusitania” in course of Construction 292_a_
Launch of the “Araguaya” 294
Launch of a Turret-Ship 294
The “Suevic” ashore off the Lizard 296
The Stern Part of the “Suevic” awaiting the New Bow at
Southampton 296_a_
The New Bow of the “Suevic” at entrance to Dock 296_a_
Charles Dickens’s State-room on the “Britannia” 298
The Veranda Café of the “Lusitania” 300
First Class Dining Saloon of the “Adriatic” 300
Dining Saloon of the S.Y. “Liberty” 302
Gymnasium of the S.Y. “Liberty” 302
The Marconi Room on a Cunard Liner 306
STEAMSHIPS AND THEIR STORY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
In my previous book, “Sailing Ships and Their Story,” which, indeed,
this present volume is meant to follow as a complement of the story
of the development of the ocean carrier, I ventured to submit the
proposition that a nation exhibits its exact state of progress and
degree of refinement in three things: its art, its literature, and its
ships; so that the development of the ship goes on side by side, and at
the same rate, as the development of the State. And if this was found
to be true with regard to the vessel propelled by sails, it will be
seen that the same can be affirmed with no less truth in respect of the
steamship.
In setting out on our present intention to trace the story of the
steamship from its first beginnings to the coming of the mammoth,
four-funnelled, quadruple-screw, turbine liners of to-day, it is not
without importance to bear the above proposition in mind. For though
the period occupied by the whole story of the steamer is roughly only
about a hundred years, yet these hundred years represent an epoch
unequalled in history for wealth of invention, commercial progress, and
industrial activity. The extraordinary development during these years,
alone, not merely of our own country and colonies, but of certain other
nations--of, for instance, the United States of America, of Germany,
of Japan--has been as rapid as it has been thorough. Consequently, if
our proposition were correct, we should expect to find that the rate
of development in the ship had been commensurate. Nor have we any
cause for disappointment, for as soon as we commence to reckon up the
achievements made in art and literature during the nineteenth, and the
first decade of the twentieth centuries, and to compare the rate of
progress of the ship during this same period, it seems at first not a
little difficult to realise that so much should have been accomplished
in so short a time.
When the inhabitant of the Stone Age had succeeded in putting an edge
on his blunt stone implement, he had instantly “broken down a wall
that for untold ages had dammed up a stagnant, unprogressive past,
and through the breach were let loose all the potentialities of the
future civilisation of mankind.” It is by no means an unfitting simile
if I suggest that we liken the invention of steam to the discovery of
the potentialities of the edge. Until the coming of the former we may
well say that progress, as we now know it, remained stagnant, at any
rate in respect of _rapid_ movement. Omitting other uses for steam not
pertinent to our present subject, we may affirm that in annihilating
space, in quickly bridging over the trackless expanse of oceans,
steamships have succeeded in accelerating the development of the
countries of the world.
Ever since the time when primitive man first learned to harness the
wind in his navigation of the waters of the earth, there had always
been sailing vessels of some sort. For, at any rate, 8,000 years
there is a chain of evidence illustrating one kind of sailing craft
or another, and the work of later centuries was but to improve and
increase the capabilities of the sailing vessels handed down from
one generation to the other. But with the first experiments in
steamships it was quite different. Here was a case of experimenting,
with but few data on which to rely. For, granted that already some
knowledge had been collected concerning the capabilities of steam, and
notwithstanding the fact that a great deal more knowledge was extant
concerning the art of shipbuilding, yet the condition of relationship
between ships and steam was unknown, untried. How to generate the
maximum of steam power at the lowest cost; how to apply this power
in such a manner as to cause the hull to go through the water at a
fair pace; whether the propelling power should find its expression at
the side or the extremity of the ship--these and many other problems
could be solved, not by previous history, but simply and solely by
experimenting, as the primitive man had solved the problem of the mast
and sail in their relation to the wind.
And yet it was scarcely probable that the value of the sail, which
had been appreciated for so many thousands of years, should be
suddenly found worthless. Inventions are no sooner born than they
find themselves compelled in their weak infancy to fight for their
lives against the militant conservatism of established custom.
Seamen-descendants of ages and ages of seamen, themselves the most
conservative of any section of society, were not likely to believe so
readily that pipes and boilers were going to do as much for the ship
as spars and sails. Nor, in fact, did they all at once. But something
had to come as a greater propelling power than uncertain wind. For the
world in the early part of this hundred years was waking up again after
the dull Georgian period. It was perhaps rather a new birth--another
Renaissance. Soon it began to get busy, and speed, not repose, became
the general cry, whose noise is heard now louder and louder each
day on land as well as sea. Every known device of the architect and
builder was employed to coax additional knots out of the sailing ship:
all the improvements in sails and gear were utilised to this purpose.
As the result of these demands the magnificent clippers doing their
marvellous passages homewards evolved. But that was all too slow.
Passengers and freights were in a hurry to get from shore to shore,
and, later, perishable food supplies could not be entrusted to the
sailing ship. And so, when once the steamship had appeared, even though
not as a pronounced success, yet the spirit of the times was such that
she should be encouraged as being likely to satisfy the cravings of an
active, restless age.
In the history of human progress we find everywhere exemplified a
continuous effort through centuries and centuries of change to obtain
an end with the least expenditure of labour. It is one of the most
striking characteristics of our nature that we proceed along that
road offering the least resistance and requiring the smallest amount
of endeavour. Not more true is this assertion to-day than in the ages
which have sunk into oblivion, and but for this human instinct, or
failing, the progress of the world would have been impossible. The
prehistoric man found the action of paddling his dug-out so irksome and
wearying that he invented the sail as a means of harnessing the wind
to do his work, and, as a result, what does the world not owe to his
apparent laziness? How else would new countries have been discovered
and peopled, commerce extended to nations beyond the seas, untilled
areas made to yield their fruitful produce, and wealth amassed by
production and exchange of commodities? It was not until Europe had at
last begun to build her big caravels and caracks, and to learn how
to handle them with adequate seamanship, that the art of navigation
advanced so far as to enable Columbus to sail across the Atlantic,
and to lay the foundation of the prosperity of the New World. To have
attained such a feat by the means of physical propulsion would have
been impossible; it was only by the invention of the sail and the
perfection of the sailing ship after many centuries of experimenting
that this came about. For man’s endurance is hedged in by stern limits.
He can only work for part of the day, and he must eat and sleep. But by
yoking the wind to the sail the voyage could be continued without the
necessity for plying the oar, and most of the crew could be below at
their rest or their meals.
But the sailing ship, too, has her limitations. When the wind drops her
range of usefulness automatically ends. When the wind becomes contrary,
or rises in sufficient fierceness as to become a gale, the sailing ship
again loses some of her utility, whilst tides and currents in like
manner combine to impede her advance from one port to another. And so,
realising all these harassing circumstances, man has ever had a desire
to shake himself free from such irritating restrictions, to assert his
own independence of winds and seas and tides, and to steer his ships
where he liked, and as fast as he liked with the minimum effort.
And yet he has been a very long time indeed finding the means of
rising superior to the forces of Nature. He has had to fight very hard
against heavy odds, he has had to devise no end of ingenious methods,
most of which have been utterly useless, and many a man, overjoyed at
his discovery of a sure means of overcoming the problem of propelling
craft without sails or oars, has found at the last that in practice it
was unworkable or too costly. Some have died from sheer want through
sacrificing their all to this one end; others, rendered more sensitive
by the ridicule and scorn of their fellow-men, have, on witnessing
their own failure, died of a broken heart, and been reckoned by the
least discerning as among those who wasted their lives in pursuing
a shadow, frittered their time and money in seeking to attain the
unattainable, and left behind them no monument except a pile of
unworkable propositions and theories.
But no generation is at any time of its career independent. From its
first moments it is under a debt to those which have come and gone.
Literature is but a collection of data amassed by our predecessors
and handed down to the next age, which adds a little more to what is
already known. It is scarcely possible to point to one man and say
that he alone was the inventor of any new theory or device, although
in carelessness we actually so speak. His own conclusions have been
based on the accumulation of what his predecessors have left for him;
and it is the same with the invention of the steamship. Some writers of
different nationalities have patriotically upheld one man or another
as the father of the steamship with a zeal that does more credit to
their national loyalty than to their sense of historical fairness.
In point of fact, although in different epochs one man has been more
successful in practical experiment than another, we cannot, at any rate
in the history of the steamship, give to that man a place of honour to
the exclusion of all those who have gone before. Without their help
he would never have succeeded. Their failures, even if they left him
little to work on, at least showed him what to avoid. As an example
we might here cite the instance of using a propeller shaped after the
manner of a duck’s foot, which, being a close copy of the method
employed by a species of animal which has its being on the surface of
the water, appealed powerfully to more than one inventor as the likely
way to solve a great problem; just as the early days of aviation were
wasted in endeavouring to follow too closely the methods of locomotion
adopted by birds. The years of man are but threescore and ten, and he
cannot go on wasting his allotted time in trying and discarding all the
experiments possible; but from the disordered mass of accumulated data
he can extract just those which have any semblance of sound sense and
practicability, from which he can deduce his own new theory and put it
to actual test.
Because, then, of this mutual inter-dependence we shall give the palm
to no individual, but endeavour to show how, step by step, the ship
has shaken herself free of entire slavery to the wind, one age helping
her a little in her ambition, others sending her forward farther still
towards her goal. Chance plays so curious a game with progress. A
genius may spring up too early or too late to be appreciated. He may be
hailed as a dangerous lunatic or as a benefactor of mankind, according
to whether the time was ripe for his appearance.
Papin, as we shall see presently, was born out of due season. His
fellow-men did not want his steamer, so they smashed it to pieces.
Solomon de Caus, who showed that he knew more about the application
of steam than anyone who had ever lived, was shut up as a madman,
whereas Fulton, another man of rare genius and wonderful fertility of
invention, has recently had his centenary celebrated and fêtes in his
memory held, lest the recollection of his great gift to mankind should
be easily forgotten. But Fulton was just the kind of man to acknowledge
his dependence on the work of his predecessors, and, in fact, did
this in so many words when he was being denounced by a rival inventor.
Desblanc, a Frenchman, pretended that his was the prior invention,
but Fulton wisely replied that if the glory of having invented the
steamboat belonged to anyone, it belonged not to himself nor to
Desblanc, but to the Marquis de Jouffroy, who had obtained a success
with his steamer on the Saône twenty years before. And the designers
and builders of the _Mauretania_ and _Lusitania_ to-day would be among
the first to admit that such achievements as these mammoth ships are
but the results of all that has gone before: in other words, it is
evolution rather than sudden invention.
Genius is the exclusive possession of no particular nation, still
less of any particular age: but it needs just that happy condition
of opportunity which means so little or may mean so much. And the
more we realise that this is so, and that it is even possible for
two men, separated by thousands of miles, to be working at the same
scientific problem and to arrive at similar solutions at about the
same date (as happens more than once in the story of the steamship),
so much more quickly shall we approach a fair and impartial verdict in
assessing praise to whom praise is due. All the mutual recriminations
and slanders, all the long years of law-suits, and the pain and grief
to both parties in several instances regarding their rival claims
for priority of invention of the essential characteristics of the
steamboat, might have been thus avoided. Coincidence is a recognisable
factor, and when men’s minds are at one particular time more keenly set
on bringing about a craft capable of moving without sails or oars, and
working with the same historical data before them, it is, in fact, more
probable than improbable that the same conclusions will be arrived at
by men who have never seen each other, nor availed themselves of each
other’s secrets.
There had always been a feeling that some means other than sails or
oars could be found for ship-propulsion, but it was not until the
possibilities of steam had begun to be appreciated that the idea of a
mechanically-propelled ship took on any practical form. Thus we might
divide our study into two separate sections. The first would consist of
all those vessels propelled by some mechanism moved by man or beast: in
other words, by physical strength employed to turn a paddle-wheel or
other arrangement. The other section would include all those efforts
to turn the machinery, not by physical, but by steam force. The first
dates from a time almost as old as the ship herself; the second in
actual success covers, as we have already said, a space of about a
hundred years only, but the first efforts date from the beginning of
the eighteenth century, when Papin performed his historic achievement.
For years and centuries man has longed to be able to navigate the air,
and to this end he has tried all shapes and kinds of balloons, yet
he is always more or less dependent on the currents of the sky. But
the recent jump from years of failure to marvellous success is due as
much to the collateral invention and development of the motor. It was
chance that caused the aeroplane and the motor industry to develop
simultaneously, and yet but for the latter the former could not have
advanced. It is much the same with the evolution of the steamship. It
was only after Solomon de Caus had, early in the seventeenth century,
published his treatise on the application of steam as a means for
elevating water, and the Marquis of Worcester, in 1663, had published
his description of “An admirable and most forcible way to drive up
water by fire,” that Papin was able to supply the key to the question
of the mechanical propulsion of ships. Even if it were possible to
prove that he had never acquainted himself with the theories of de Caus
and the Marquis of Worcester, that argument would avail but little,
for the solution was bound to come sooner or later; it was inevitable.
There must be, man reasoned, some means for propelling a ship along the
water other than by sails or oars. The Chinese had been working at the
idea, the Romans had at least attempted it; through the Middle Ages
there had been actually accredited instances, and so the eighteenth
century was not too soon for its accomplishment. Thus, when Papin
determined to apply steam power to vessels, he was just one of those
many benefactors of the world who have succeeded by means of Nature
to overcome Nature: by employing fire and water to overcome water and
space.
Let us, then, turn to the next chapter and see something more of the
different methods which were tried before the satisfaction of full
and undoubted success rewarded man in his struggle against the limits
to his freedom. As this is a history rather of steamships than of all
kinds of mechanically-propelled craft, we must examine not all the
ingenious theories and the wild conceptions which many minds in many
ages have conceived for propelling ships by mechanical means other
than steam (for with those alone we could fill this book), but having
shown something of the main principles which underlay these, we shall
pass on to tell, for the benefit of the general reader, something of
the vicissitudes through which has passed that swift and majestic
creature which carries him across vast oceans and broad turbulent
channels, as well as the peaceful waters of the land-locked lake
and river. For this reason, while not omitting anything that shall
contribute to the better understanding of the story, we shall omit
from our study such technical details and theories as came to nothing
practical and, notwithstanding their importance in fashioning the
future of the steamship, are of less interest to the average reader
than to the shipbuilder and engineer. Modern activity is now so rapid;
event follows event so quickly; the ship of yesterday is already made
obsolescent by a newer type, that we cannot fairly be accused of
living too near the period to obtain an accurate perspective. Whether
steamships will flourish much longer, or whether they will in turn
be surpassed, as they have ousted the sailing ship, is a debatable
proposition. At any rate, to anyone who has at heart one of the
greatest and most powerful forces in the spread of civilisation, the
story of steamship evolution, from comparative inutility to a state
of efficiency which is remarkable even in this wonder age, cannot but
appeal with an attractiveness commensurate with its importance.