The _Great Eastern_ steamship deserves to be regarded as the eighth
wonder of the world, beyond all question. She is at present by far the
largest vessel in the world, and is the most magnificent creation of
naval architecture that was ever launched upon the sea.
The substance of the following account of this interesting ship has been
gathered principally from the Times and the Illustrated London News for
1859, the year in which the _Great Eastern_ was launched, and from a
pamphlet which was sold on board, by permission of the proprietors.
The _Great Eastern_ was intended for the Indian and Australian route by
the Cape of Good Hope. The result of large experience in steam
navigation has proved that the size of the ship, (when steam is used),
ought to be in proportion to the length of the voyage. Mr Brunel, the
talented engineer to whose genius and perseverance this monster ship
owes her existence, acting on this principle, calculated that the voyage
to Australia and back being 22,500 miles--a vessel of 22,500 tons
burden, (or a ton burden for every mile to be steamed), would require to
be built, capable of carrying fuel for the entire voyage, it being
impossible, without incurring enormous expense, to procure coal for such
a vessel at intermediate ports.
The Eastern Steam Navigation Company undertook the herculean work. The
total cost of construction was estimated at 804,522 pounds. Mr Brunel
prepared the designs. A spot of ground was chosen on the banks of the
Thames, in the building-yard of the company at Millwall, and the
building was commenced, on the lines laid down by Mr Scott Russell, on
the 1st of May 1854.
Every minute detail of the arrangements and building of this wonder of
the world is fraught with interest. The mere preparing of the ground to
receive her enormous weight was calculated to fill the minds of men with
astonishment. Her supports and scaffoldings, and the machinery by which
she was ultimately launched, taxed the skill of her engineers even more
than her construction. A very town of workshops, foundries, and forges
sprang into being round her hull; and as this rose, foot by foot, in all
its gigantic proportions, the surrounding edifices dwindled down into
insignificance, and the busy population of artificers clustered upon her
like ants upon a prostrate monarch of the forest-trees.
The hull of the _Great Eastern_ is built entirely of iron, and is 680
feet in length, 83 feet in breadth, and 60 feet in height from keel to
deck. It is divided transversely into ten separate compartments of 60
feet each, rendered perfectly water-tight by bulk-heads, having no
openings whatever lower than the second deck; whilst two longitudinal
walls of iron, 36 feet apart, traverse 350 feet of the length of the
ship.
The mind will be better able to realise the magnitude of these
dimensions if we add that the _Great Eastern_ is six times the size of
the Duke of Wellington line-of-battle ship, that her length is more than
three times the height of the Monument, while her breadth is equal to
the width of Pall Mall, and a promenade round the deck affords a walk of
more than a quarter of a mile.
There is no keel properly so called, but in its place a flat keel-plate
of iron, about two feet wide and one inch thick, which runs the entire
length from stem to stern. This is the base upon which all the rest is
reared, plates and girders alike. The iron plates which form her
planking are three-quarters of an inch thick. Up to the water-mark the
hull is constructed with an inner and outer skin, two feet ten inches
apart, both skins being made of three-quarter inch plates, except at the
bottom, where the plates are an inch thick; and between these, at
intervals of six feet, run horizontal webs of iron plates, which bind
the two skins together, and thus it may be said that the lower part of
the hull is two feet ten inches thick.
This mode of construction adds materially to the safety of the vessel;
for, in the event of a collision at sea, the outer skin might be pierced
while the inner might remain intact. This space may also at any time be
filled with water, and thus ballast, to the amount of 2500 tons, be
obtained.
Some idea of the magnitude and weight of the vessel may be formed from
the fact that each iron plate weighs about the third of a ton, and is
fastened with a hundred iron rivets. About thirty thousand of these
plates were used in her construction, and three million rivets. The
fastening of these rivets was one among the many curious operations
performed in course of building. The riveting men were arranged in
gangs, each gang consisting of two riveters, one holder-up, and three
boys. Two boys were stationed at the fire or portable forge, and one
with the holder-up. This boy's duty was to receive the red-hot rivet
with his pincers from the boy at the forge, and insert it in the hole
destined for its reception, the point protruding about an inch. The
holder-up immediately placed his heavy hammer against the head of the
rivet, and held it firmly there, while the two riveters assailed it in
front with alternate blows, until the countersunk part of the hole was
filled up, after which the protruding head was cut off smooth with the
plate, the whole operation scarce occupying a minute. In riveting the
double part of the ship the holder-up and his boy were necessarily in
the interior part of the tubes, and passed the whole day in the narrow
space between, (of two feet ten inches wide), in comparative darkness,
having only the glimmer afforded by a single dip candle, and being
immediately under the deafening blows of the riveters.
The _deck_ of the _Great Eastern_ is double, or cellular, after the plan
of the Britannia Tubular Bridge. The upper deck runs flush and clear
from stem to stern, and he who takes four turns up and down it from stem
to stern walks upwards of a mile. The strength of this deck is so
enormous that if the ship were taken up by its two extremities, with all
its cargo, passengers, coals, and provisions on board, it would sustain
the whole. The deck has been covered with teak planking, and has been
planed and scrubbed to man-of-war whiteness. Not even a stray rope's
end breaks the wonderful effect produced by its immense expanse. Her
fleet of small boats, which are about the size of sailing cutters, hang
at the davits, ten on each side. There are six masts and five funnels.
The three centre square-rigged masts are of iron. They were made by Mr
Finch of Chepstow, and are the finest specimens of masts of the kind
that were ever manufactured. Each is made of hollow wrought iron in
eight-feet lengths, strengthened inside by diaphragms of the same
material. Between the joints, as they were bolted together, was placed
a pad of vulcanised india-rubber, which gives a spring and buoyancy to
the whole spar greater than wood, while at the same time it retains all
the strength of the iron. The other masts are made of wood, and the
canvas that can be spread is no less than 6500 square yards. On deck
are four small steam winches or engines, each of which works a pair of
cranes on both sides of the vessel; and with these five thousand tons of
coals can be hoisted into the vessel in twenty-four hours.
The _engines_ and boilers are of immense power and magnitude. There are
both screw and paddle engines, the former being capable of working up to
6500 horse-power, the latter to 5000. There are ten boilers and one
hundred and twelve furnaces. The paddle engines, which were made by
Messrs. Scott Russell and Company, stand nearly 40 feet high. Each
cylinder weighs about 28 tons, and each paddle-wheel is 58 feet in
diameter, or considerably larger than the ring in Astley's Circus. The
screw engines were manufactured by Messrs. Watt and Company of
Birmingham. They consist of four cylinders of 84 inches diameter and 4
feet stroke. The screw propeller is 24 feet in diameter and 37 feet
pitch; and the engine-shaft is 160 feet long, or 12 feet longer than the
height of the Duke of York's Column. The paddles and screw, when
working together at their highest pitch, exert a force equal to 11,500
horsepower, which is sufficient to drive all the cotton-mills in
Manchester! The consumption of coal to produce this force is estimated
at about 250 tons per day.
Besides these engines there are also several auxiliary engines for
pumping water into the boilers, etcetera.
The passenger accommodation in the _Great Eastern_ is very extensive--
namely, 800 first-class, from 2000 to 4000 second-class, and about 1200
third-class passengers; or if troops alone were taken, it could
accommodate 10,000 men.
The _saloons_ are fitted up in the most elaborate and costly manner.
The chief saloon is magnificently furnished. It is said that the
mirrors, gilding, carpeting, and silk curtains for this apartment alone
cost 3000 pounds. In the berths, of course, no attempt is made at
costly decoration of this kind, though the fittings are good and
sufficiently luxurious. The berths are arranged in three classes: those
for parties of six or eight, and these are large rooms; those for
parties of four; and the rest in the usual style of double cabins. All
are very roomy, as cabins go--very lofty, well lit, and those on the
outer sides exceedingly well ventilated. On the lower deck the berths
are even larger, loftier, and more commodious than those on the upper.
Both the berths and saloons here are in fact almost unnecessarily high,
having very nearly fifteen feet in the clear. The kitchens, pantries,
and sculleries are all on the same extensive scale, and fitted with all
the large culinary requisites of first-class hotels. The ice-house
holds upwards of 100 tons of ice; and the lofty wine-vaults--for such in
fact they are--contain wine enough to form a good freight for an Oporto
trader.
_Miscellanea_.--In addition to the boats of the _Great Eastern_ (twenty
in number), she carries two small screw-steamers, each 100 feet long, 16
feet broad, 120 tons burden, and 40 horse-power, suspended aft of the
paddle-boxes.
As the captain's voice could not be heard half-way to the bow, even with
the aid of the ancient speaking-trumpet, that instrument is supplanted
by _semaphore_ signals by day, and _coloured_ lamps by night; the
_electric telegraph_ is also used in connection with the engine-rooms.
There are ten _anchors_, four of them being Trotman's patent, weighing
seven tons each. The _cables_ are each 400 fathoms long, and their
united weight is 100 tons. The _tonnage_ of the _Great Eastern_ is
18,500 tons register, and 22,500 tons builders' measurement. The _crew_
at first consisted of thirteen officers, seventeen engineers, a
sailing-master, and a purser, four hundred men, and two or three
surgeons, all under the command of the late Captain W. Harrison,
(formerly of the Cunard line).
The _launch_ of this leviathan was a most formidable undertaking, and
was accomplished by means of powerful hydraulic rams, which propelled
the vessel down the launching "ways." The ship rested on two gigantic
cradles, and was forced sideways down the inclined plane, until she
floated on the river. By a complication of ingenious contrivances the
great ship was regulated in her descent so as to proceed slowly and
regularly down the ways. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to
launch her, and several of the hydraulic rams broke down ere she floated
on the bosom of Old Father Thames; and the cost of this operation alone
is said to have been nearly 100,000 pounds.
The _trial of the engines_, both screw and paddle, took place for the
first time on the 8th of August 1859, when the completion of the vessel
was celebrated by a banquet on board. The first movement of the
gigantic cranks and cylinders of the paddle engines was made precisely
at half-past one, when the great masses slowly rose and fell as
noiselessly as the engines of a Greenwich boat, but exerting in their
revolutions what seemed to be an almost irresistible power. There was
no noise, no vibration, nor the slightest sign of heating. The
tremendous frame of ironwork sprang at once into life and motion, with
as much ease as if every rod and crank had been worked for the last ten
years.
The _trial trip_ of the _Great Eastern_ was an event that excited
intense interest all over the kingdom. For the first time, she cast off
her moorings on Wednesday morning, (the 7th September), and reached the
Nore on Thursday, where she anchored for the night before proceeding to
sea. On Friday morning, at ten minutes past nine, she started on her
first salt-water voyage. A conviction of the extreme steadiness of the
vessel must speedily have seized everyone on board. There was no
perceptible motion of any kind. The giant ship was speedily surrounded
by yachts, tugs, fishing-smacks, and, indeed, by a representative of
almost every kind of vessel which is prevalent at the Nore. These
accompanied her as far on her way as their limited sailing powers would
permit. Although there were sharp squalls and a chopping sea nearly all
through the trip, not the slightest inconvenience was felt by any of the
visitors, not even among the fairer portion of the passengers. The
morning, which was rather fine at starting, suddenly became clouded, and
the shifting squalls increased in violence. Though the squally state of
the weather damped the pleasure of all on board, yet it afforded an
opportunity of trying the properties of the ship, now under paddle as
well as screw; and it was the wish of Mr Scott Russell and all on board
to meet a good gale of wind. At a moderate computation, the distance
from the deck to the water could not be much less than forty feet, while
the vessel is nearly seven hundred feet long. This area would, of
course, present an enormous surface to the force of the wind, and formed
the subject of considerable discussion as to the effect it would have on
her sea-going qualities. The ship was as stiff and steady as though she
still remained on her cradles in the Isle of Dogs, and her course was as
calm and true as though she were on a lake without a capful of wind.
It is said that at one portion of the voyage she steamed nineteen miles
an hour.
The _explosion_.--All went well till the ship had passed Folkestone.
About half-past five o'clock, while the majority of the passengers were
on deck, and a few gentlemen only remained in the dining saloon, a
tremendous explosion occurred, and in an instant showers of broken
glass, and fragments of wood and iron, came crashing through the
skylight. Those in the cabin rushed on deck. The ship was still
pressing onward; at either end all was still and deserted, while in the
centre all was smoke, fire, vapour, and confusion. The great funnel, of
eight tons weight, had been shot up as if from a mortar, and fell on the
deck broken in two pieces. The whole centre of the ship seemed to be
only one vast chasm, and from it were belching up steam, dust, and
something that looked like incipient conflagration. Captain Harrison
acted nobly on this terrible occasion. He had been standing on the
bridge overhead, looking into the binnacle, and the moment he heard the
report, and whilst the destructive shower was still falling fast, he
jumped upon the deck, and ordered an immediate descent to the ladies'
saloon, in the firm conviction that they were all there as on the
previous evening. But many of the men were panic-stricken, and had
already shrunk away from the explosion. A foolish passenger had raised
a cry of "The boats," and, assisted by some of the sailors, was madly
attempting to let them down. In one moment all would have been lost;
for the rush to the boats would have been general, and hundreds been
drowned, whilst the noble ship would have been left to certain
destruction. But the voice of the captain was heard like a trumpet,
calling out, "Men, to your duty; officers, to your posts; give me a
rope, and let six men follow me!" The effect of this short address was
electric. In an instant he had slid down the rope into the saloon,
followed by his brave boatswain Hawkins, and six volunteers were not
long wanted for the forlorn hope. One after another he dashed open the
gilded panels; but the splendid apartment had, strange to say, only two
inhabitants,--his little daughter Edith, and her pet dog. It was the
reward of his gallantry that his own child should be thus the one to be
so providentially saved. But even then he did not for a moment lose his
self-command. Snatching up the child, and with one glance seeing that
she was unharmed, he exclaimed, "Pass her along to the deck; there are
more rooms to be searched." In this way did he move about rapidly, but
coolly, and did not again return to the deck until he had satisfied
himself that not a single woman was in the burning, steaming,
suffocating chamber. His intimate friend, Mr Trotman, who had followed
him down almost immediately, found the poor lap-dog moaning under a heap
of ruins, and was the means of restoring it to its little mistress.
The magnificent saloon was a mass of torn and shattered furniture,
mirrors, and ornaments. Had the passengers adjourned to this apartment
after dinner, instead of to the deck, the consequences would have been
awful.