E-text prepared by
Paul Marshall, Donald Cummings, Adrian Mastronardi,
the Philatelic Digital Library Project
([https://www.librarything.com/groups/tpdlp])
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
([http://www.pgdp.net])
from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive
([https://archive.org])

STEAM NAVIGATION.

Steam Navigation
AND
ITS RELATION TO THE COMMERCE
OF CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES.

BY

James Croil,

MONTREAL.

Author of “Dundas: A Sketch of Canadian History.”

With Illustrations and Portraits.

TORONTO:
WILLIAM BRIGGS.
MONTREAL: THE MONTREAL NEWS COMPANY, Limited
1898.

Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight, by William Briggs, at the Department of Agriculture.

This Volume
is dedicated by permission to
His Excellency the Earl of Aberdeen,
K.T., G.C.M.G., etc.,
Governor-General of Canada
from 1893 to 1898,
a nobleman who will long be gratefully remembered
as the benefactor and friend
of all classes of the community, and
who, with his Consort,
The Countess of Aberdeen, LL.D.
will always be associated by the
Canadian people with a period in their history of
great national prosperity,
their joint efforts in furthering lofty ideals
having done much to
advance the highest interests of the Dominion.

PREFACE.

WHEN the history of the nineteenth century comes to be written, not the least interesting chapter of it will be that which treats of the origin, the development, and the triumphs of Steam Navigation—that mighty combination of inventive genius and mechanical force that has bridged the oceans and brought the ends of the earth together.

During the past few years several important contributions to this class of literature have issued from the metropolitan press. Three of these deserve special mention: (1) “The Atlantic Ferry; its Ships, Men, and Working,” by Arthur J. Maginnis, gold medallist and member of the Institution of Naval Architects, 1892; (2) “Our Ocean Railways, or the Rise, Progress, and Development of Ocean Steam Navigation,” by A. Fraser-Macdonald, 1893; (3) “The History of North Atlantic Steam Navigation, with Some Account of Early Ships and Shipowners,” by Henry Fry, ex-President of Dominion Board of Trade of Canada and Lloyd’s Agent at Quebec, 1896. Each of these writers, in his own way, has treated the subject so thoroughly and satisfactorily, the author feels as though the wind had been taken out of his sails somewhat, and it is not without hesitation that he has yielded to the advice of friends in whose judgment he has implicit confidence, and ventured to follow in the wake of such accomplished writers.

If I am questioned as to motif I cannot better justify the rash deed than by endorsing the sentiment in Byron’s apostrophe:

“And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers—they to me
Were a delight.”

These pages are of a much less pretentious character than the above-named books. They are but a compilation of materials more or less intimately connected with Steam Navigation, gathered from many sources, during many years, and now woven into homely narrative. They necessarily contain much in common with these other writings on this subject, but they are projected from a different standpoint and embrace a wider field, supplying information not easily obtained, respecting the far-reaching waterways of Canada, her magnificent ship canals, and the vast steam commerce of the Great Lakes.

So numerous are the sources of information drawn upon, it is impossible to make adequate acknowledgment of them all. The agents of Atlantic lines of steamships were particularly obliging in their replies to inquiries made of them. Without in any way making them responsible for the use made of their communications, upon these my remarks on that branch of the subject are chiefly based. Among other publications I have consulted the “Transactions of the Imperial Institute,” London, and of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec; Government reports emanating from Ottawa and Washington; also many pamphlets, magazine and newspaper articles bearing on the subject, not to speak of my capacious scrap-book and some well-thumbed note-books.

Additional authorities will be indicated as the narrative proceeds. Besides these, grateful acknowledgments for valuable assistance are due to Sir Sandford Fleming and Mr. George Johnson, F.S.S., of Ottawa; to Messrs. Douglas Battersby, R. W. Shepherd, and the late Captain Thomas Howard, of Montreal; to Mr. Archibald Campbell, of Quebec; Captain Clarke Hamilton, of Kingston; Mrs. Holden, of Port Dover, Ont., and Mr. T. M. Henderson, of Victoria, B.C.; to members of the Boards of Trade in Montreal, Minneapolis and Duluth; and to the following clergymen: Rev. Dr. Bruce, of St. John, N.B.; Rev. T. F. Fullerton, of Charlottetown. P.E.I.; Rev. James Bennett, of L’Orignal, Ont., and Rev. W. H. L. Howard, of Fort William, Ont.

The illustrations have nearly all been made for this work: the wood-cuts by Mr. J. H. Walker, and the half-tones by the Standard Photo-Engraving Company, Montreal.

J. C.

Montreal, October, 1898.

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

“PILGRIM,”
Sister to Priscilla of the Fall River Line, 1890.

CHAPTER I.
THE DAWN OF STEAM NAVIGATION.

Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me As I gaze upon the sea! All the old romantic legends. All my dreams come back to me. —Longfellow.

The up-to-date standard—Old-time sailing ships—The clipper packet-ship—Dawn of steam navigation—Denis Papin on the Fulda—Bell’s Comet—Fulton’s Clermont—American river steamers and ferry-boats.

TRAVEL increases in faster ratio than do facilities for inter-communication. The prophecy surely is being fulfilled in these latter days, “Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” It is estimated that at least 750,000 persons travel yearly between Europe and America; 99,223 cabin passengers and 252,350 steerage passengers landed at New York from Europe in 1896. The Cunard Line brought the largest number of cabin passengers, 17,999, from Liverpool, and the North German Lloyd Line the largest number of steerage, namely, 38,034, from Bremen.

Notwithstanding the wonderful development of railway and steamship systems, means of conveyance during the summer months often fall short of the demand. Passages by the more popular lines of steamships must be engaged months ahead; in many cases the ships are uncomfortably crowded. At such times sofas take the place of berths, and all the officers’ rooms, from the coveted Captain’s cabin to the second and third stewards’ bunks, are called into requisition and held at a round premium. On Saturday, the 8th of May, 1897, no less than 1,500 saloon passengers left New York for Liverpool on the great ocean greyhounds. The travelling season is comparatively short, the competition is keen, and the enormous expense of building, furnishing and running up-to-date steamships renders it difficult to provide the requisite accommodation on a paying basis. The up-to-date steamship must be built of steel, to combine light weight with strength. It must have triple or quadruple expansion engines to economize fuel. It must be propelled by twin or triple screws, as well for the easier handling of the vessel as for safety in case of a breakdown of machinery, and for attaining the highest possible speed. Our ideal steamship must be able to turn quite round in its own length, and to go through the water at an average speed of at least twenty knots an hour. To attain these results, ships of a very large class are called for—nothing short of from eight to ten thousand tons burthen will come up to the mark. There are many magnificent steamships in the North Atlantic trade and elsewhere but as yet few have in all respects reached the up-to-date standard, and even those that are such this year, a few years hence are certain to be regarded as quite behind the times. There is no valid reason to suppose that the process of development which has been going on during the last fifty years in this direction is to be arrested at the close of the century. The indications, so far as they can be interpreted, are all in the opposite direction. The paddle-wheel ocean steamer reached its zenith with the launch of the Scotia of the Cunard Line in 1862. She was the last of the race.

The wooden steamship, “copper-fastened and copper-bottomed,” etc., etc., is long since a thing of the past. The iron age, which succeeded the wooden, has been changed to steel, and steel may change to something else, and steam to electricity. Who knows? Mr. Maginnis, who is himself an engineer and an architect, speaks with authority when he says that, “Whether the improvements be in the ship or in the machinery, gradual advances will be made in the near future.” The thirst of competing steamship companies for conquest on the high seas—at any cost—and the ambition of ship-builders to improve upon the latest improvements, will not be satisfied with present attainments, even if it can be proved to a demonstration that thousands of additional horse-power and hundreds of additional tons of coal per day would be required to increase to any appreciable extent the maximum rate of speed that has already been reached. In the meantime some idea may be formed of the possible saving in the consumption of fuel when it is stated that, by a system of induced draught, discovered since the last two Cunarders were designed, the number of boilers necessary to generate steam enough for 30,000 indicated horse-power may be reduced to little more than one-half, which, to put it briefly, means a corresponding saving in space, weight and first cost.[1] In fact, well-informed marine engineers do not hesitate to express their opinion that the day is not far distant when Atlantic greyhounds may be coursing across the ocean at the rate of thirty knots an hour, bringing Queenstown and Sandy Hook within ninety-three hours of each other.

It is difficult to form a correct idea, from any verbal or pictorial representation, of the elegance, the convenience and the comfort attaching to the “Express Steamship.” Nothing short of a voyage or voyages in one of these floating palaces would suffice to give an adequate conception of their excellence. And yet, when all is said that can be said in praise of the steamship, some of us “old stagers” can look back, if not with lingering regret, at least with pleasant recollection, to the days of the packet-ship, and even of the sailing vessel of humbler pretensions.

Some of the early emigrant ships were certainly of a mean order, and many emigrants suffered cruel hardships before they reached their destination. It was not an uncommon thing for five or six hundred men, women and children to be huddled together indiscriminately in the hold of a vessel of from 250 to 300 tons, doomed to subsist on coarsest food, and liable to be immured beneath hatches for days or weeks at a time, without medical attendance, obliged to cook their own food, and scantily supplied with water; and all this for eight or ten weeks at a stretch!

In one of his autobiographic sketches the late Bishop Strachan says that he sailed from Greenock in the end of August, 1799, “under convoy,” and such was then the wretched state of navigation, he did not reach Kingston, by way of New York and Montreal, till the 31st of December. In a letter before me an aged friend recites the story of his adventurous voyage from Liverpool to Quebec, some fifty years ago. The ship was a superannuated bluff-bowed East Indiaman, but counted good enough in those days to carry five hundred emigrants across the stormy Atlantic. When ten days out they encountered a hurricane which drove the vessel out of her course. Her three masts fell overboard. The cook’s galley and the long boat, the water casks, and everything else on deck, vanished in the gale. The huge hulk rolled like a log in the Bay of Biscay for several days, the passengers meanwhile being confined between decks in horrible confusion. A passing steamer towed them back to Plymouth, where six weeks were spent in refitting the ship, each adult receiving ten shillings and sixpence per week for board and lodging until the repairs were completed. After seven weeks more of great discomfort “and tyrannical treatment on the part of the captain,” they finally reached Quebec in 107 days after first embarking at Liverpool.

My own experience of sailing ships, though fifty-seven years have elapsed, is still fresh in mind and recalls some pleasant memories. My first voyage to New York was from the Clyde in a new American ship, commanded by one Captain Theobald, a typical New Englander, as fine a man as one could desire to meet. The voyage was uneventful in the ordinary sense of the term, but one’s first voyage in a sailing ship is an event never to be forgotten. It was anticipated with peculiar interest, and regarded with far greater importance than attaches to crossing the Atlantic nowadays. So far from being monotonous, there were incessant changes in sea and sky, in the dress of the ship, and the occupations and songs of the sailors. One day the ship might be bowling along beautifully, decked out in her royals and sky-sails, her studding-sails and stay sails; next day, perhaps, she might be scudding under reefed topsails before an easterly gale, pooping seas that washed the quarterdeck and tumbled like a waterfall into the waist of the ship. Occasionally, a “white squall” coming up would make things lively on deck while it lasted. If becalmed in the right place we caught codfish. For the most part, however, the familiar refrain of “tacks and sheets” would be heard many times a day and in the night watches, as we tacked this way and that way against westerly breezes, thankful if the log showed that we had advanced on our course forty or fifty miles in twenty-four hours.

My second voyage westward in a sailing ship was also a memorable one. The Scotch captain of the good ship Perthshire, in which we sailed from the Tail of the Bank, off Greenock, on June 19th, 1844, was very unlike the Yankee skipper of the previous voyage. Captain S—— was kind and attentive to his passengers, but not at all popular with his crew. As I watched him taking the sun, the first day out, he said, “Young man, you are going to be some weeks on board this ship, with nothing to do but to eat and drink and sleep. Suppose you take a few lessons in navigation? Here is a spare quadrant which you can use.” I jumped at the offer, and very soon mastered at least the outlines of the business. Much was learned in these six weeks—how to find the latitude and longitude at sea; to ascertain the precise deviation of the chronometer from Greenwich time, and of the compass from its true bearing; to measure the trend and velocity of ocean currents, and, failing solar observations, how to consult the moon and the stars. This was not only interesting; it was a fascinating pastime. The captain of a twenty-knot steamship has seldom need to “resolve a traverse;” he steers a straight course for his destination, and can usually estimate within a few hours, or even minutes, when he will reach it. It is quite different with the master of a sailing vessel; after contending with contrary winds and being driven out of his course for weeks at a time, he must often wrack his brains before he can locate his exact position on the chart. To be enveloped in dense fog in the near neighbourhood of Sable Island for several days at a time, as happened to us on this voyage, is a very perplexing position to be in.

For a slight offence Captain S—— would send a man aloft to scrape masts in a gale of wind; for a graver misdemeanour he would clap him in irons; had the lash been permitted, he would probably not have hesitated to use it. As might be supposed, things did not go very well in the fo’castle. At length a climax was reached, when the starboard watch came aft one day and lodged a complaint. Getting little or no satisfaction, they retired sullenly, went below, and refused to work for a whole week. The working of the ship then devolved on the first and second mates, the carpenter and the cook, with such of the cabin passengers as could give them assistance. The steerage passengers, siding with the sailors, would not touch a rope, and things even went so far that one of them was placed in confinement for insolence. Some of us were rather glad of the opportunity thus afforded of running up the rigging and creeping through the lubbers’ hole without being “salted.” When orders were given to shorten sail or shake out a reef, we “lay out” on the yard in sailor fashion; but how much good we did on such occasions will never be known.[2] At any rate, we counted it fine fun, and it gave the fiasco a touch of romance that we slept with loaded pistols under our pillows. But the mutiny ended harmlessly when the pilot came on board. One may cross the Atlantic nowadays without any kind of “adventure” like that to adorn a tale, even without so much as once speaking to the captain.

Not every one has the chance of seeing Jack in his citadel. I was deputed by the captain to interview the strikers and endeavour to pacify them. Armed with a copy of the shipping articles which the men had all signed, and another formidable document printed in very large type, I went down into the dingy cabin at the dinner hour. Such a place as it was! I shall never forget it. It corresponded in minute detail to Dana’s description of his fo’castle in “Two Years Before the Mast.” It was devoid of furniture. There was not even a table to place their food on. In the centre of the floor stood a dirty-looking wooden tub containing a junk of boiled salt beef; near it was a pail full of boiled rice and some hard-tack. The men, about a dozen of them, sat each man on his sea-chest, using his jack-knife to cut and carve with. There were no plates. Imagine the rest. The only grievance they would mention to me was that they had been refused molasses with their rice! Their mind was made up to stay under hatches till the pilot came aboard. They would work for him, but not for the captain; and they kept their word. As I was about leaving, the spokesman of the party, pointing to the mess on the middle of the floor, said with a look that constrained pity, “Mister, how would you like that for your own dinner?” He had the best of the argument. It may be added here that this voyage to New York lasted forty-two days, and the last entry in my log is to the effect that we made as good a passage as any ship from England, “beating the Columbus packet-ship by two days!”

“GREAT REPUBLIC.”
Last of the Clipper Passenger Packets, 1854.

The clipper “packet ship” was a vast improvement on the ordinary sailing ship. It had just reached its highest point of development when the ocean steamship first made its appearance. It was to the upper strata of the travelling community, sixty years ago, the counterpart of the express steamer of to-day. The packet-ship was built for fast sailing, with very fine lines, was handsomely fitted up and furnished, was exceedingly well found in eatables and drinkables, and carried a great spread of canvas. To see one of these ships under full sail was a sight to be remembered—a rare sight, inasmuch as all the conditions of wind and water necessary for the display of every stitch of canvas are seldom met with in the North Atlantic. They not unfrequently crossed in fourteen or fifteen days. In winter they might be three months on a single voyage, but their average would be from twenty-five to thirty days.

There were many separate lines of packet-ships sailing at regular intervals from London and Liverpool, and from Hamburg and Havre, to New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and other American ports. Among these were the famous Black Ball Line, the White Star Line, the Old and the New Line of Liverpool packets, etc. The New Line was American, and of it E. K. Collins, the promoter of the Collins’ Line of steamers, was the New York agent. The ships were named Shakespeare, Siddons, Sheridan, Garrick, and so forth, hence this was called the “Dramatic Line.” It is refreshing to read one of their advertisements in the Montreal Gazette, as old as November 20th, 1838:

“These ships are of the first-class, upwards of 800 tons burthen, built in the city of New York, with such improvements as to combine great speed with unusual comfort to passengers. Every care has been taken in the arrangement of their accommodation. The price of passage hence is $140, for which ample stores, including wines, etc., will be provided; without wines, etc., $120. These ships will be commanded by experienced masters, who will make every exertion to give general satisfaction. Letters charged at the rate or 25 cents per single sheet.

☛The ships of this line will hereafter go armed, and their peculiar construction gives them security not possessed by any other but vessels of war.”

E. K. COLLINS, New York.
WM. & JAS. BROWN & CO., Liverpool.

The Great Republic, one of the last of the clipper packet-ships, was built in the United States in 1854. She was a four-master of 3,400 tons, 305 feet long, 53 feet beam, and 30 feet in depth. She made the run from New York to the Scilly Islands in thirteen days. She ended her sailing career as a French transport ship, and finally was degraded to a coal hulk. The largest sailing vessel afloat at the present time is the five-masted steel ship La France, built on the Clyde by D. & W. Henderson for French owners. She is 6,100 tons burthen, 375 feet long, 49 feet wide and 33¾ feet depth. Her fore mainmast is 166 feet high. On her first trip from Cardiff to Rio Janeiro she carried 6,000 tons of coal, and attained a speed of twelve and a half knots.

The Dawn of Steamship Navigation.

Paddle-wheels for driving boats through the water were used long before steam-engines were thought of. They were worked by hand and foot-power without, however, any advantage over the old-fashioned oar. The horse-boat, in a variety of forms, has been in use for many years, and is not yet quite obsolete. In its earlier form two horses, one on each side of a decked scow, were hitched to firmly braced upright posts at which they tugged for all they were worth without ever advancing beyond their noses, but communicating motion to the paddle-wheels by the movable platform on which they trod. For larger boats four or five horses were harnessed to horizontal bars converging towards the centre, and moved around the deck in a circle, the paddles receiving their impulse through a set of cog-wheels. The “latest improvement” was on the direct self-acting treadmill principle, the power being regulated by the weight of the horses and the pitch of elevation given to the revolving platform on which the unfortunate animals were perched. Newcomen’s steam-engine had been invented and used for other purposes eighty years at least, before it was applied to the propelling of vessels. The modern steamboat is not an invention, but rather the embodiment of many inventions and experiments, extending over a long series of years by different men and in different countries.

HORSE-BOAT AT EMPY’S FERRY, OSNABRUCK, ONT.

One of the first actual steamboats of which there is authentic record sailed down the River Fulda, in Prussia, in the year 1707. It was built, engined and navigated by a clever Frenchman, Denis Papin,[3] who was born in 1647, was educated as a physician, and became assistant to the celebrated philosopher, Huygens, in Paris, where he published a small volume on the mechanical effects to be obtained by means of a vacuum. While this attracted the attention of savants, it had little or no interest for practical men, and yet in it lay the germ of the power that was to revolutionize the world. He went to London with letters to the Royal Society, and was employed by that society several years, during which he continued his experiments on atmospheric pressure and the vacuum, and the power of steam. He was next appointed Professor of Mathematics in the University of Marburg, from which he removed to Cassel. He had seen the horse-boat in England, and the idea of employing steam to turn the paddles took strong hold of him. He had a boat built and fitted with a steam-engine, in which he embarked with his family and all his belongings, with a view to making his experiment known in Britain and exhibiting his steamboat. All went well until he reached the junction of the rivers Fulda and Weser, where the boatmen got up a hue-and-cry that their craft was endangered by this innovation. In vain Papin protested that he merely wanted to leave the country. On the plea that their rights of navigating these waters had been infringed upon, they rose up en masse, seized the steamboat, dragged out the machinery and smashed it to atoms. Poor Papin found his way back to London a broken-hearted man, never to see the day when his great discovery was to enrich the world.

MILLER’S TWIN BOAT ON LOCH DALSWINTON, 1788.
From “Chambers’ Book of Days.”

Fifty years later another experiment was made by Patrick Miller, a banker in Edinburgh, aided by Mr. Taylor, tutor in his family, and Alexander Symington, a practical engineer. Mr. Miller had a boat built and fitted with a small steam-engine, for his amusement, on Dalswinton Loch, Dumfriesshire. It was a twin-boat, the engine being placed on one side, the boiler on the other, and the paddle-wheel in the centre. It was launched in October, 1788, and attained a speed of five miles an hour. The engine, of one horse-power, is still to be seen in the Andersonian Museum, in Glasgow. Encouraged by his experiment, Mr. Miller bought one of the boats used on the Forth and Clyde Canal, and had a steam-engine constructed for it by the Carron Ironworks Company, under Symington’s superintendence. On December 26th, 1789, this steamboat towed a heavy load on the canal, at a speed of seven miles an hour; but, strange to say, the experiment was dropped as soon as it was tried.

SYMINGTON’S “CHARLOTTE DUNDAS,” 1802.
From “Our Ocean Railways.”

In 1801 the London newspapers contained the announcement that an experiment had taken place on the Thames, on July 1st, for the purpose of propelling a laden barge, or other craft, against the tide, by means of a steam-engine of a very simple construction. “The moment the engine was set to work the barge was brought about, answering her helm quickly, and she made way against a strong current, at the rate of two and a half miles an hour.” In 1802 a new vessel was built expressly for steam navigation, on the Forth and Clyde Canal, under Symington’s supervision, the Charlotte Dundas, which was minutely inspected on the same day by Robert Fulton, of New York, and Henry Bell, of Glasgow, both of whom took sketches of the machinery to good purpose.[4] This boat drew a load of seventy tons, at a speed of three and a half miles an hour, against a strong gale of wind. Under ordinary conditions she made six miles an hour, but her admitted success was cut short by the Canal Trust, who alleged that the wash of the steamer would destroy the embankment.

Bell’s “Comet.”[5]

Nothing more was heard of the steamboat in Britain until 1812, when Henry Bell surprised the natives of Strathclyde by the following advertisement in the Greenock Advertiser:

STEAM PASSAGE BOAT,

“THE COMET,”

Between Glasgow, Greenock and Helensburgh,
for Passengers Only.

The subscriber having, at much expense, fitted up a handsome vessel, to ply upon the River Clyde, between Glasgow and Greenock, to sail by the power of wind, air and steam, he intends that the vessel shall leave the Broomielaw on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, about mid-day, or at such hour thereafter as may answer from the state of the tide; and to leave Greenock on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, in the morning, to suit the tide.

The elegance, comfort, safety and speed of this vessel requires only to be proved to meet the approbation of the public; and the proprietor is determined to do everything in his power to merit public encouragement.

The terms are, for the present, fixed at 4s. for the best cabin, and 3s. for the second; but beyond these rates nothing is to be allowed to servants, or any other person employed about the vessel.

The subscriber continues his establishment at Helensburgh Baths, the same as for years past, and a vessel will be in readiness to convey passengers to the Comet from Greenock to Helensburgh.

Henry Bell.

Helensburgh Baths, 5th August, 1812.

Bell’s Comet was a quaint-looking craft, with a tall, slender funnel, that served the double purpose of mast and chimney. Her length was 42 feet, breadth 11 feet, draught of water 5½ feet. She had originally two small paddle-wheels on each side with four arms to each. The engine was about three horse-power, and seems to have been the joint production of Bell and the village blacksmith. The boiler was made by David Napier, at a cost of £52. The engine is still preserved in the patent office of the South Kensington Museum. The Comet was lengthened at Helensburgh, in 1818, to 60 feet, and received a new engine of six horse-power, by means of which her speed was increased to six miles an hour. This engine was made by John Robertson, of Glasgow.

BELL’S “COMET,” OFF DUMBARTON ON THE CLYDE, 1812.
From “Chambers’ Book of Days.”

The Comet did not pay as a passenger boat on the Clyde, and was soon after her launch put on the route to Fort William, and continued on that stormy route till December 15th, 1820, when she was wrecked at Craignish, on the West Highland coast. She had left Oban that morning against the advice of her captain, who deemed the boat unseaworthy and quite unfit to encounter the blinding snow storm, in the midst of which she went ashore. But Bell had over-ruled the captain. Fortunately there was no loss of life. She was replaced in the following year by a larger and improved style of vessel, called by the same name and sailed by the same master, Robert Bain, who was the first to take a steamer through the Crinan Canal, and the first to traverse the Caledonian Canal from sea to sea by steam, in 1822. The second Comet came into collision with the steamer Ayr off Gourock in October, 1825, and sank with the loss of seventy lives. She was raised, however, was rigged as a schooner, renamed the Anne, and sailed for many years as a coaster.

Mr. Bell was born in Linlithgow in 1767. The son of a mechanic, he worked for some time as a stone-mason, afterwards as a carpenter, and gained some experience in ship-building at Bo’ness under Mr. Rennie. He removed to Helensburgh in 1808, where his wife kept the Baths Inn while he was experimenting in mechanical projects. He was a man of energy and enterprise, but like most inventors was always scant of cash. Had it not been for the generosity of his friends, and an annuity of £100 which he received from the Clyde Trust, he would have come to want in his old age. He seems to have had steam navigation on the brain as early as 1786, and had communicated his ideas on the subject to most of the crowned heads of Europe, as well as to the President of the United States, before he built the Comet. Mr. Bell’s memory is perpetuated in an obelisk erected by the city of Glasgow corporation on a picturesque promontory on the banks of the Clyde at Bowling, “in acknowledgment of a debt which it can never repay.” There is also a handsome granite obelisk to his memory on the esplanade at Helensburgh, the inscription on which testifies that “Henry Bell was the first in Great Britain who was successful in practically applying steam power for the purpose of navigation.” The stone effigy of the man adjoining his grave in Row churchyard was placed there by his friend Robert Napier, whose fame and fortune were largely the result of Bell’s enterprise. Mr. Bell died at his inn in Helensburgh, November 14th, 1830.

Fifty years later witnessed the full development of Mr. Bell’s ideal in the Columba, then as now the largest river steamer ever seen on the Clyde, and the swiftest. The Columba is built of steel, is 316 feet long and 50 feet wide. She has two oscillating engines of 220 horse-power, and attains a speed of twenty-two miles an hour. Her route is from Glasgow to Ardrishaig and back, daily in summer, when she carries from 2,000 to 3,000 persons through some of the finest scenery in Scotland. She is provided with steam machinery for steering and warping her into the piers, and with other modern appliances that make her as handy as a steam yacht. She resembles a little floating town, with shops and post-office where you can procure money orders and despatch telegrams And what is the Columba after all but an enlarged and perfected reproduction of Bell’s Comet!

“COLUMBA,” FAMOUS CLYDE RIVER STEAMER, 1875.

“WILHELM KAISER” ON THE RHINE, 1886.

The reputation of the Clyde in respect of ocean steamships and “ironclads” has become world-wide. Some of the best specimens of marine architecture are Clyde-built. Her own river steamers are the finest and fleetest in the United Kingdom. The Thames river steamers, though far inferior to the Clyde boats, answer their purpose by conveying vast numbers of people short distances at a cheap rate. The Victoria Steamboat Association, with its fleet of forty-five river steamers, can carry 200,000 people daily for a penny a mile. The Rhine steamers and those plying on the Swiss lakes are in keeping with the picturesque scenery through which they run. Painted in bright colours, they present a very attractive and smart appearance. They are kept scrupulously clean and are admirably managed. Many of them are large, with saloon cabins the whole length of the vessel, over which is the promenade deck covered with gay awnings. They run fast. The captain sits in state in his easy chair under a canopy on the bridge—smoking his cigar. The chief steward, next to the captain by far the most important personage on board, moves about all day long in full evening dress—his main concern being to know what wine you will have for lunch or dinner that he may put it on ice for you. The table d’hote is the crowning event of the day on board a Rhine steamer, i.e., for the misguided majority of tourists to whom a swell dinner offers greater attractions than the finest scenery imaginable.

The success of the first Comet induced others to follow the example. The year 1814 saw two other small steamboats on the Clyde. Next year the Marjery, built by Denny of Dumbarton, made a voyage to Dublin and thence to the Thames, where she plied between London and Margate for some time, to the consternation of the Thames watermen. In 1818 David Napier of Glasgow went into the business, and equipped a number of coasting steamers with improved machinery. At this time the Rob Roy, claimed to be the pioneer of sea-going steamers, began to run to Belfast, but being found too small for the traffic she was put on the Dover and Calais route. In 1819 the Admiralty of the day had a steamboat built for towing men of-war, called the Comet, 115 feet by 21 feet, with two of Boulton & Watt’s engines of 40 horse-power each. This vessel was followed by the Lightning, Echo, Confiance, Columbia and Dee—the latter vessel having side-lever engines of 240 horse-power, with flue boilers carrying a pressure of six pounds to the square inch, which developed a speed of seven knots an hour. In 1822 a large number of steam vessels fitted with condensing engines were afloat. The James Watt was built in that year to ply between Leith and London. The largest steamer at that time was the United Kingdom, built by Steele of Greenock, 160 feet long by 26½ feet wide, having engines of 200 horse-power—as much an object of wonder in those days for her “gigantic proportions” as was the Great Eastern thirty years later. In 1825 there were 168 steam vessels in Britain; in 1835 there were 538; in 1855 there were 2,310, including war vessels afloat and building; in 1895 the number of steam vessels built in the United Kingdom was 638, of which number 90 per cent. were built of steel. In 1897 the number of steamers over 100 tons in the United Kingdom, including the colonies, was computed to be 8,500, with a net tonnage of 6,500,000 tons.

The “Clermont.”

Three years before Bell’s achievement on the Clyde, a clever American, profiting by the experiments of Symington, applied his inventive genius to perfecting the application of steam as a motive power for vessels, and gained for himself the honour of being the first to make it available for practical use on a paying basis. This was Robert Fulton, a native of Pennsylvania, born in 1765, who commenced business as a portrait painter and followed that profession for some years in France and England. He invented a number of “notions,” among the rest a submarine torpedo-boat, in which he claimed that he could remain under water for an hour and a half at a time; but failing to receive the patronage of any naval authorities, he returned to New York, and, with the assistance of Mr. John Livingstone, had a steamboat built and fitted with an English engine by Boulton & Watt, of Birmingham. The Clermont (after being lengthened) was 133 feet long, 18 feet beam, and 7½ feet deep. Her wheels were uncovered, 15 feet in diameter, with eight buckets, 4 feet long, to each wheel, and dipping 2 feet. The cylinder was 24 inches in diameter, with 4 feet stroke of piston. The boiler was of copper, 20 feet long, 7 feet wide and 8 feet high.

FULTON’S “CLERMONT” ON THE HUDSON, 1807.

The Clermont made her first voyage from New York to Albany, August 7th, 1807. Her speed was about five miles an hour. During the winter of 1807-8 she was enlarged, her name being then changed to North River. She continued to ply successfully on the Hudson as a passenger boat for a number of years, her owners having acquired the exclusive right to navigate the waters of the State of New York by steam. The Car of Neptune and the Paragon, of 300 and 350 tons, respectively, were soon added to the Fulton & Livingstone Line. Both of these vessels were fitted with English engines. The Paragon continued to ply on the Hudson for about ten years, earning a good deal of money for the owners. About 1820, while ascending the river, she ran upon a rock and became a total wreck. Other steamboats were built for other waters, and very soon there were steamers plying on all the navigable rivers of the United States available for commerce. Mr. Fulton married a daughter of Mr. Livingstone. He died in New York in 1815, at the height of his fame and prosperity.

MISSISSIPPI STEAMBOAT “J. M. WHITE,” 1878.

OHIO STEAMBOAT “IRON QUEEN,” 1882.

The contrast between Fulton’s Clermont, or Bell’s Comet and the Atlantic Liner coursing over the sea at railway speed is very striking, and scarcely less remarkable the comparison of the river steamboat of to-day with these early experiments. America has developed a type of steamboat, or rather types of steamboats, peculiarly its own. The light-draught Mississippi steamers[6] bear little resemblance to the Hudson River and Long Island Sound boats while the American steam ferry-boat is a thing certainly not of beauty, but unique. Dickens in his American Notes speaks of the Burlington, the crack steamer on Lake Champlain in the early forties, as “a perfectly exquisite achievement of neatness, elegance and order—a model of graceful comfort and beautiful contrivance.” But Dickens never saw the Priscilla. She was only launched in 1894, and is claimed to be “pre-eminently the world’s greatest inland steamer—the largest, finest and most elaborately furnished steamboat of her class to be found anywhere.” The Priscilla is 440½ feet long, 52½ feet wide, or 95 feet over the paddle-boxes. The paddle-wheels are of the feathering type, 35 feet in diameter and 14 feet face. Her light draught is 12½ feet, and her speed easily 22 miles an hour, though the ordinary service of the line does not demand such fast running. Her night’s work is 181 miles, which she covers leisurely in ten hours. She cost $1,500,000. All the interior decorations are very elaborate and handsome. In her triple row of staterooms there is luxurious sleeping accommodation for 1,500 passengers. In the spacious dining-room 325 persons may be seated at one time. The grand saloon is a magnificent spectacle, large and lofty, superbly decorated and lighted by electricity. The Priscilla has cargo capacity for 800 tons of freight. “Her machinery is not only a marvel of design and workmanship, but it fascinates all persons interested in mechanical devices.” It consists of a double inclined compound engine, with two high-pressure cylinders, each fifty-one inches in diameter, and two low pressure, each ninety-five inches in diameter, all with a stroke of eleven feet. There are ten return tubular boilers of the Scotch type, each fourteen feet in diameter and fourteen feet long, constructed for a working pressure of 150 lbs. to the square inch. The indicated horse-power is 8,500. The machinery is principally below the main deck, leaving all the space on and above this deck available for general purposes.

“PRISCILLA.”
Fall River and Long Island Sound Line, 1894.

This floating palace was built at Chester, Pa., by the Delaware Iron Ship-building and Engine Works Company. She is built of steel. Her registered tonnage is 5,398 tons. Although so vast in her proportions, the Priscilla sits on the water as lightly and gracefully as a swan. Painted white as snow outside, as nearly all American river steamers are, she presents a beautiful, you might say a dazzling, appearance; and she is only one of five magnificent steamers of the Fall River Line, all substantially alike in design and equipment, running regularly all the year round between Fall River and New York, with a perfection of service that cannot be surpassed.

“NEW YORK.”
The latest Hudson River Day Steamer, 1897.

This cut, kindly furnished by the owners, gives a faithful representation of the exterior of a very beautiful Hudson River day steamboat. The New York is built of steel, 311 feet over all, breadth of beam 40 feet, and over the guards 74 feet; average draught of water 6 feet. She combines speed, luxuriousness of furnishing and a beauty of finish in all parts that has not been surpassed on vessels of this class. She is capable of running 24 miles an hour. This boat and her consort, the Albany, are claimed to be the finest day passenger river steamers in the world. She is not crowded with 2,500 passengers, of whom 120 may sit down together to an exquisite dinner in the richly decorated dining-room.

A distinct class of steamboats peculiar to America is the ferry-boat. In one of its forms it is to be found fully developed in New York harbour, and serves to convey daily countless thousands of people whose business lies in New York City, but whose homes are on Brooklyn Heights or elsewhere on Long Island, or the New Jersey coast. The boats are very large and very ugly, but do their work admirably, being adapted for the transport of wheeled carriages of every description as well as for foot-passengers. One of the sights of New York worth seeing is a visit to the Fulton Ferry in the morning or in the evening, when the crowds are the greatest. The Robert Garrett, which runs down the bay to Staten Island, carries from 4,000 to 5,000 passengers at a trip, and is said to be the largest steam-ferry passenger boat in existence. She is owned by the Staten Island Rapid Transit Co., and cost $225,000.

Another type of ferry-boat is that which, in addition to carrying passengers, is specially adapted for railway purposes. The best specimen of this kind of steamboat is probably to be found on Lake Erie, where a pair of boats, precisely alike, keep up regular communication twice a day, summer and winter, between Coneant, Ohio, and Port Dover, Ontario. They are named Shenango, 1st and 2nd. They are each 300 feet long and 53 feet in width. On the main deck are four railway tracks, sufficient for twenty-six loaded cars each containing 60,000 lbs. of coal. On the upper deck are handsomely fitted cabins for 1,000 passengers The ferry is sixty-five miles wide. Sometimes it is pretty rough sailing, but these steamers never fail to make the round trip in thirteen hours. They are fitted with compound engines, Scotch boilers, and twin screws; they draw 12½ feet of water when loaded and run twelve miles an hour; they are prodigiously strong, and can plough their way through fields of ice with marvellous facility.

“ROBERT GARRETT,” FERRY STEAMBOAT, NEW YORK.

CHAPTER II.
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.”

“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.

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.

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 363⁶⁰⁄₉₄ 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.

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.

THE “GREAT BRITAIN,” 1845.

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.

A MYTHICAL WIND-BOAT, FROM AN OLD ENGRAVING (1805).

CHAPTER III.
THE CUNARD LINE AND ITS FOUNDERS.

THIS well-known line takes its name from Samuel Cunard (afterwards Sir Samuel), a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, who had for some time been conducting the mail service between Halifax, Boston, Newfoundland and Bermuda, and who had long been revolving in his mind the idea of establishing a regular line of ocean mail steamers, but could not find the necessary financial backing in his native country. Proceeding to Britain, Mr. Cunard fortunately fell in with Robert Napier, the famous Clyde ship-builder and engineer, who entered heartily into his proposals and introduced him to George Burns (afterwards Sir George), one of the foremost men in shipping circles at that time, and a man of large means. Through him Mr. Cunard was introduced to David MacIver, of Liverpool, who was of a kindred spirit. The result before long was a partnership of these three with a subscribed capital of £270,000 sterling, and the obtaining of a contract with the British Government for seven years to institute and maintain a steam service from Liverpool to Halifax and Boston, twice a month during eight months of the year and once a month in winter, for an annual subsidy of £60,000. Subsequent stipulations made by the Admiralty were accompanied by an increase of the subsidy to £80,000. At the end of seven years the contract was renewed, but for a weekly service in summer, and twice a month in winter. Saturday then became the regular day of sailing from Liverpool, and New York was adopted as one of the American termini. In 1848, when it was found that a weekly service was required, the subsidy was increased to £156,000 per annum. In 1860, to facilitate the despatch of the mails, the boats began to call at Queenstown both going out and returning home, as they still continue to do. In January, 1868, a new mail contract came into operation, under which the Cunard Line received £70,000 a year for a direct weekly service to New York. In the following year Halifax was left out of the programme, although a separate branch line continued to run to Boston as it still does.

“BRITANNIA,” FIRST OF THE CUNARD LINE, 1840.

The original name of the company was “The British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company,” but it soon took the less cumbrous title of “The Cunard Steamship Company, Limited.” The Cunard Line commenced its service from Liverpool to North America on the anniversary of American Independence, the 4th of July, 1840, superseding as mail-carriers the ten-gun sailing brigs of earlier days.[13]

THE “NIAGARA,” AS A TRANSPORT IN 1855.

The first fleet consisted of four side-wheel steamers, each 207 feet long, 34⅓ feet beam and 22½ feet deep. Their wooden hulls were constructed by four different builders on the Clyde—the Acadia by John Wood, the Britannia by Robert Duncan & Co.; the Caledonia by Charles Wood, and the Columbia by Robert Steele. All four were built after the same model, closely resembling that of the Great Western. They were all supplied with engines of the side-lever type, by Robert Napier & Sons, 403 horse-power, nominal, with cylinders of 72½ inches diameter and 82 inches stroke. They burned about forty-four tons of coal per day, and carried a steam pressure of 9 pounds to the square inch. The Britannia, commanded by Captain Woodruff, R.N., sailed on her first westward voyage on July 4th, and after calling at Halifax, reached Boston on the 19th, having made the passage in 14 days, 8 hours, including detention at Halifax. So great was the enthusiasm in Boston, it is said that Mr. Cunard, who had come out in the Britannia, received eighteen hundred invitations to dinner during the first twenty-four hours of his stay in the city! From that time until now the service has been maintained with marvellous regularity, and the line has an unrivalled reputation for safety. During all these intervening years the ships of the Cunard Line have crossed and recrossed the stormy Atlantic without the loss of a single life. In the early days of the service, the Unicorn, formerly of the Glasgow and Liverpool Line, plied between Quebec and Pictou, N.S., in connection with the Atlantic steamers, and is said to have been the first transatlantic steamer to reach Boston, on June 2nd, 1840. The Unicorn was commanded by Captain Walter Douglas—a great favourite with his passengers—and the boat was a very fine one indeed.

The second contract, calling for weekly sailings, necessitated a larger fleet of steamers. To meet this demand four new ships were built, and took their places on the line in 1848, namely, the America, Niagara, Canada and Europa. Each of these was 251 feet long, of 1,800 tons burthen and 750 horse-power. They had an average speed of 10½ knots an hour. And so, from time to time, as the exigencies of trade and the need for enlarged passenger accommodation demanded, fresh additions were made to the fleet, each succeeding ship surpassing its predecessors in size, equipment and speed. The Persia, built in 1856, was the first of the iron boats: the Scotia, in 1862, was the last of the paddle-wheel steamers. They were both very fine ships of 3,300 and 3,871 tons, respectively, accounted the best specimens of marine architecture then afloat. The China, launched in 1862, was the first Cunard single-screw steamer. She was followed, in 1867, by the Russia, the queen of ocean steamers in her day. Passing a number of intervening ships, we come, in 1881, to the Servia, the first of the line built of steel—a magnificent vessel, 515 feet long, 7,392 tons, 9,900 horse-power, and attaining a speed of 16.7 knots.

In the meantime important changes had been transpiring in the constitution of the Cunard Company and its environment. The original shareholders had been by degrees bought out by the founders, so that the whole concern was vested in the three families of Cunard, Burns, and MacIver. Sir Samuel attended to the business in London, Mr. Burns in Glasgow, and Mr. MacIver in Liverpool, and never was any business better managed than by these men and their successors. In 1878 it was deemed expedient to consolidate the interests of the partners by the formation of a joint stock company with a capital of £2,000,000 sterling. The three families interested in the concern took up £1,200,000 in paid-up shares. No shares, however, were offered to the public until 1880, when a prospectus was issued, setting forth the necessity for additional steamships of the most improved type, involving a large outlay of money. The shares were readily bought up and measures were taken to increase the efficiency of the fleet, which had become at length imperative owing to the keen competition of rival lines. This was inevitable.

THE “SCOTIA,” LAST OF CUNARD PADDLE-STEAMSHIPS, 1862.

The manifest success of the Cunard Company could not long continue without exciting competition, and this followed in due course from a variety of quarters; nor was it to be expected that they should easily hold the supremacy of the sea against all new-comers. They had, in fact, to contend vigorously for their laurels, and at successive intervals had to retire into the second rank, but their determination to regain and hold, at whatever cost, the championship has been well illustrated in the newer ships of the line. The Umbria and Etruria, steel ships launched in 1884, having cost nearly two millions of dollars each, were a decided advance upon any steamers then afloat. They are 500 feet long, 57 feet 3 inches wide, and 40 feet in depth; they are of 8,127 tons, 14,500 horse-power and are equal to a speed of 19½ knots an hour. They have ample accommodation for 550 first-class passengers and 800 steerage. Each of them has made the run from Queenstown to New York (2,782 knots) in less than six days. In nine consecutive voyages the Etruria (in 1885) maintained an average speed of 18 knots. Her fastest voyage, however, from Queenstown to New York, was made in August, 1897, when she was thirteen years old—namely, 5 days, 21 hours and 10 minutes actual time, the average speed during the voyage being about 20 knots.

THE “CAMPANIA,” AT LIVERPOOL LANDING-STAGE.

It helps one to understand the enormous cost of such vessels when it is stated that the single screw-propeller weighs about thirty-nine tons and costs $25,000! Splendid as was the record of these crack Cunarders, they were surpassed by ships of the White Star and Inman Lines. Something had to be done. An order was given to the Fairfield Ship-building and Engineering Company on the Clyde to build two steel twin-screw express steamships that should surpass all previous efforts. The result was the Campania and Lucania, launched at Govan in September, 1892, and February, 1893, respectively. These sister ships are splendid specimens of marine architecture. They are each 620 feet long, 65¼ feet beam, and 43 feet in depth. Their gross tonnage is 12,950 tons; their twin screws are driven by triple expansion engines of 30,000 indicated horse-power. Each engine has five cylinders and three cranks. The low-pressure cylinders have the enormous diameter of 8 feet 2 inches; the two high-pressure cylinders are 37 inches in diameter, and the intermediate are 79 inches, with a stroke of 5 feet 9 inches. They are arranged tandem fashion, with a high-pressure cylinder over a low-pressure cylinder, one at each end, and the intermediate in the centre. At eighty revolutions (their normal speed) this enormous weight is moved about 2,000 feet per minute. The crank shaft is twenty-six inches in diameter, and each of the three interchangeable parts weighs twenty-seven tons. The propeller shaft is twenty-four inches in diameter, fitted in lengths of twenty-four feet, each length having two bearings. The bossing out of the stern, as in the Teutonic and Majestic, permits the screws to work without any exterior overhanging bracket, as in other screw steamers. The central boss of the propeller is made of steel; the three blades, weighing eight tons each, are of manganese bronze. A new feature in the machinery is what is called an “emergency governor,” which, in case of the shaft breaking, or the screw racing from any other cause beyond a certain speed, is designed to act automatically on the reversing gear and stop the engines. These gigantic engines are started and reversed by steam. Their height from the base to the top of the cylinders is no less than forty-seven feet. There are twelve large boilers, with four furnaces at each end, and made to stand a pressure of 165 lbs. to the square inch. The two funnels are each twenty feet in diameter, and rise to a height of 130 feet above the floor of the ship. The rudder is one large plate of steel, 22 x 11½ feet in area and 1½ inches thick. With the steering gear it weighs forty-five tons! On her maiden voyage from New York to Liverpool the Campania eclipsed all previous records, making the run to Queenstown, by the long route (2,896 knots), in 5 days, 17 hours, 27 minutes. Her fastest eastern passage has been 5 days, 9 hours, 18 minutes, and westward, 5 days, 9 hours, 6 minutes. She has run 548 knots in twenty-four hours, and maintained an average speed of 21.82 knots an hour throughout an entire voyage.

Wonderful as the performances of the Campania have been, they are surpassed by her sister ship. The Lucania made the western voyage, from Queenstown to New York, arriving October 27th, 1894, in 5 days, 7 hours, 23 minutes, the fastest voyage between these points yet made. Her daily runs on that occasion were, 529, 534, 533, 549, 544, 90—total knots, 2,779. Her fastest eastward voyage (up to July, 1897) has been 5 days, 8 hours, 38 minutes; her best average speed throughout a voyage was 22.1 knots an hour, and her highest day’s running is 560 knots. The arrival and departure of these steamers at the Liverpool landing-stage has come to be anticipated with almost as much exactitude as that of our best regulated railways. The mails which they carry from New York on Saturday morning are usually delivered in Liverpool on the following Friday afternoon, and letters from London are delivered in Montreal in seven days. By arrangement with the Admiralty, and in consideration of an annual subvention of £19,000, the Lucania and Campania are held at the disposal of the Government whenever their services may be required as armed cruisers. Other ships of this line are also at the disposal of the Admiralty without any specified subsidy.

Changes and improvements of very great importance to the travelling community have taken place within the last few years, not only in regard to the ocean steamships, but also in regard to facilities for embarkation and landing, and this very largely owing to the lively competition of Southampton and the inducements which it has to offer as a shipping port. The dredging of the bar at the mouth of the Mersey, so as to admit of sea-going vessels entering the port at any state of the tide, is not the least important of the changes referred to. Until quite recently ocean steamers had frequently to come to anchor six or eight miles from the mouth of the river, and wait outside for hours till the tide would rise. That obstruction has been removed, and now the largest steamers can cross the bar at almost any state of the tide. But that is not all. The tedious and discomfortable method of being conveyed from ship to shore in a “tender” has also been done away with. The wonder is that it was submitted to so long. The ocean steamship on her arrival at Liverpool is now brought alongside the landing-stage, and instead of being obliged to drive in a cab or omnibus across the city a mile or more to the railway station for London or elsewhere, the railway and the station have come down to the water’s edge, and you pass at once from the ship to the railway train, and immediately proceed on your journey. Passengers for New York may leave Euston Station, London, at noon by a special train of the London and North Western Railway, and find themselves on the landing-stage at Liverpool at 4.15 p.m., the run of over two hundred miles being made, perhaps, without a stoppage—looking for their luggage, as Englishmen are accustomed to do, and astonished to learn that, by some occult system of handling, and, most strange of all, without a “tip,” it is already on board the ship!

Each of these ships is designed to carry six hundred first-class and over one thousand second and third-class passengers. The accommodation provided for them are of the most elaborate description. No expense has been spared in the internal fittings of the ships. Everything that science and skill and refined taste could suggest has been brought into requisition. A more facile pen than ours describes the public rooms, as we call them, as follows, in terms by no means too appreciative: “The dining saloon is a vast, lofty apartment near the middle of the ship, one hundred feet long, sixty-two feet broad, and ten feet high, capable of seating at dinner 430 passengers in their revolving armchairs. The decorations are highly artistic. The ceiling is panelled in white and gold, the sides in Spanish mahogany, and the upholstering is in a dark, rich red, figured frieze velvet, with curtains to match. There are nooks and corners where small parties may dine in complete seclusion. The forty side-lights are of unusual size. Fresh air is admitted by patent ventilators in the roughest weather. For lighting, as well as ventilation, there is an opening in the ceiling in the centre of the room, 24 x 16 feet, surmounted by a dome of stained glass reaching a height of thirty-three feet above the floor. The drawing-room is a splendid apartment, 60 x 30 feet. The walls are ornamented with satin wood, richly carved. The furniture is upholstered in rich velvets and brocades. In the cosy fireplace there is a brass grate and a hearth laid with Persian tiles. The ceiling is in pine, decorated in light tones, old ivory prevailing, with not too much gilding. A Grand piano and an American organ are also provided. The library, 29 x 24 feet, is very ornate. It is suitably furnished with writing tables and writing materials, and a handsome book-case filled with a choice selection of books. The smoking-room, 40 x 32 feet, is decorated in the Scottish baronial style. The whole tone of the room is suggestive of otium cum dignitate. The ordinary staterooms are lofty and well ventilated, with cunning devices for the saving of room and making things look pleasant and comfortable. Then there are suites of rooms elaborately furnished with tables and bedsteads and bath-rooms, and every conceivable luxury of that sort, for those who are able and willing to pay for them.” The accommodation for second-class passengers is in keeping with that for the first. These, too, have their elegant dining-room, and drawing-room, and smoking-room. Even the third-class can rejoice with their neighbours in “the comforts of smoke.”

One of these ships, when carrying her full complement of passengers, will start on her voyage provisioned somewhat on this scale: 20,000 lbs. of fresh beef, 1,000 lbs. of corned beef, 10,000 lbs. of mutton, 1,400 lbs. of lamb, 500 lbs. of veal, 500 lbs. of pork, 3,500 lbs. of fresh fish, 1,000 fowls—400 chickens, 250 ducks and geese, 100 turkeys, 30 tons of potatoes, 30 hampers of vegetables, 18,000 eggs, 6,000 lbs. of ham, 3,000 lbs. of butter, etc., etc.; 13,650 bottles of ale and porter, 6,650 bottles of mineral waters, 1,600 bottles of wines and spirits, are frequently consumed on a single voyage.

The various vessels of the Cunard fleet between them carry on an average 110,000 passengers per annum, besides 600,000 tons of merchandise and 50,000 carcases of dead meat in refrigerators, over a distance of one million miles annually. The Campania and Lucania, owing to the large space occupied by their machinery, only carry about 1,600 tons of freight each.

The order and discipline on board a Cunard liner is that of a man-of-war. The vessels have been built under a special survey, and combine in their construction the best known appliances, in cases of fire, collision, or any other marine contingency, for the safety of the ship and its living freight. The watertight bulkheads are sixteen in number, and will enable the ship to float with any two or even three of the compartments filled with water. The life-boat equipment and service is ample and thoroughly organized. In short, everything is made subservient to safety.

Some idea of the cost of running vessels of this size and speed may be formed when it is stated that the daily average consumption of coal is nearly four hundred tons, but when urged to utmost speed it would be nearer five hundred tons. The crew, all told, number about 424, of whom 195 are required to attend to the engines and boilers alone. In the sailing department, from the captain to the lamplighter, about sixty-five; in the steward’s department, including 8 stewardesses, about 120, and in the cook’s department, about 45. These 424 persons must be paid and fed at a cost of from $12,000 to $15,000 a month. Each of the ships must have cost over $3,000,000, the interest upon which, at four per cent., is $120,000 per annum; add the enormous cost of provisioning the ship for perhaps six hundred cabin passengers, who, for the most part, expect to fare more sumptuously every day they are on board than they do at home; and one thousand intermediate and steerage passengers, who must live like fighting-cocks; then estimate, if you can, the cost of insurances, agencies, advertising, port charges, pilotage; write off a reasonable percentage for wear and tear; these put together represent an amount so formidable as to leave a very slender margin for profits. At the last annual meeting of the shareholders a dividend of 2½ per cent. for the year 1897 was declared, which was considered a good showing.

Since 1840 the Cunard Company have employed no less than fifty-six first-class passenger steamships in the Atlantic service alone. The entire fleet at present consists of thirty-three ships, with a total tonnage of 124,124, and 153,732 horse-power, and maintains regular communication from Liverpool to New York, Boston, France and almost every country in the Mediterranean. Excepting some of the ships acquired by purchase, all the others were built to order on the Clyde. In all these fifty-eight years the Cunard Company has only lost three ships. Through the mistake of her pilot, the Columbia, one of the first Atlantic fleet, ran ashore during a fog near Cape Sable, N.S., in July, 1843, and became a total wreck, but her mails and passengers were safely landed. In 1872 the Tripoli, of the Mediterranean Line, was wrecked on the Tuskar Rocks in St. George’s Channel, half-way between Cork and Dublin, but no lives were lost. In 1886 the company met with its severest loss by the sinking of the magnificent steamship Oregon, recently purchased from the Guion Company. Early in the morning of the 4th of March she was run into by an unknown sailing vessel when about fifty miles from New York, and such were the injuries she sustained she gradually filled with water and went to the bottom, not, however, before the whole ship’s company, numbering 995 souls were safely transferred to the Fulda of the North German Lloyd Line, which fortunately came up to the scene of the disaster in the nick of time. Her bulkheads should have saved her from going under, and would have done so, but for some unexplained obstruction to the closing of a watertight door. As it was, the bulkheads kept her afloat long enough to save the lives of all on board.

Among the famous captains in the forties were C. H. E. Judkins, James Stone, William Harrison, Ed. G. Lott, Theodore Cook, Captain Moodie, and James (afterwards Sir James) Anderson who commanded the Great Eastern on some of her cable-laying expeditions. Captain Harrison was the first commander of the Great Eastern, and was drowned in the Solent when going ashore from his ship in a dingy. Captain Judkins was born at Chester in 1811; he entered the Cunard service in 1840 as chief officer of the SS. Acadia: was appointed commander of the Britannia that same year, and was successively master of the Hibernia, Canada, Persia and Scotia. He lived to be Commodore of the fleet and retired from the sea in 1871, after having made more than five hundred voyages across the Atlantic without any serious accident, and being able to say that the Cunard Company at that date had lost neither a life nor a letter. Captain Judkins died in 1876. He was a typical British sailor. He could be exceedingly gracious, and when the mood struck him he could be gruff. I remember making a voyage with him on the Hibernia in 1843, on which occasion he ran across from Halifax to Liverpool under a cloud of canvas, with studding sails set low and aloft most of the time, a dense fog all the way, but he picked up his pilot off Cape Clear, just where he expected to find him, and went snoring up the Channel, growling like a bear at the captain of a Dublin steamer who would not get out of his way, and whom in his wrath he threatened to send to “Davie Jones’ locker.” The voyage was made in nine days and a half, I think, which was accounted a marvellous run in those days. Captain Lott was one of the most genial of men and very popular. He, too, was banqueted on the completion of his five hundredth trip. It has been said of him that his good nature was occasionally ruffled when liberties, unconsciously or otherwise, were taken with his name; as, for example, when a worthy minister officiating on board took for his text, “Remember Lot’s wife”; and again, when a rough sailor complained in his hearing that his pork was “as salt as Lot’s wife.”

Sailors, as a rule, are not given to talk shop, and are quick to resent idle talk in others. The story is told of Captain Theodore Cook that one day when taking his noon observation, a cloud interrupted his vision. Just then a passenger coming along said with a patronizing air, “Captain Cook, I’m afraid that cloud prevented you from making your observation.” “Yes, sir,” replied the potentate of the sea, “but it did not prevent you making yours.”[14]

At the time of the “Trent Difficulty,” as it was called, in 1861, the Australasian and the Persia of the Cunard Line were chartered by the British Government to bring out troops to Canada. On the 4th of December orders were received to prepare the Australasian with all speed for this service; her fittings were completed on the 10th, she took in her coal on the 11th, and sailed on the 13th with the 60th Rifles. On the 5th of the same month similar orders were received for the Persia, which sailed on the 16th with 1,180 troops, consisting of 1st Battalion of the 16th Regiment and a detachment of sappers. Captain Cook, of the Australasian, having encountered much ice in the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, had to turn back, and took his ship to Halifax and thence to St. John, New Brunswick, where he landed his contingent. Judkins, on the other hand, brought the Persia right up to Bic and landed his men, but, the ice threatening to keep him there, he quickly bolted for the open sea, leaving his boats behind him!

Of the more recent commanders, Captain W. H. P. Haines, late of the Campania and Commodore of the Cunard fleet, may be instanced as a good specimen. A born sailor he may be called, inasmuch as he is a native of Plymouth, whose father and grandfather before him followed the sea and who himself has been sailing for nearly fifty years and counts 592 voyages across the Atlantic. Captain Haines has always been as noted for caution as for skill. It is said of him that “whatever temptation there might be to make a fast passage, he would never neglect to take soundings, nor rely on any patent apparatus, without repeatedly fortifying its results by stopping his ship to get up and down casts with the ordinary lead.”

To guard against the risks of collision with other vessels, the Cunard steamers follow prescribed routes laid out for them, by which the ships, both outward and homeward bound, are kept at a respectable distance. In estimating the runs of the Atlantic liners from Liverpool to New York and return, Daunt’s Rock, off Queenstown, and the Sandy Hook lightship, twenty-six knots from New York, are regarded as the points of departure and arrival; but as Daunt’s Rock is about 244 knots from Liverpool, it follows that, to complete the voyage, a full half day’s run must be added to the record as usually announced. It is also to be remembered that the day at sea is longer or shorter according to the speed of the ship. On a twenty-knot vessel going east the average length of day is about 23 hours and 10 minutes; going westward it is about 24 hours and 50 minutes. The difference of time between Greenwich and New York is about five hours.

CUNARD TRACK CHART.

The “express steamers,” as the fast ships are now called, of the Cunard Line at present are the Campania, Lucania, Etruria and Umbria. These four constitute the weekly mail service, sailing every Saturday from Liverpool and New York. The Aurania, Servia and other vessels perform a fortnightly service from the same ports, sailing on Tuesdays. Five steamers are employed in maintaining a weekly service between Liverpool and Boston, and about a dozen more are required for the service between Liverpool, France and the Mediterranean.

The story of the Cunard Company would be incomplete without at least a brief reference to its three founders, Messrs. Cunard, Burns and MacIver, and Mr. Napier, the engineer, who was so closely identified with them.

THE FOUNDERS OF THE CUNARD LINE.

The late Sir Samuel Cunard was a son of Abraham Cunard, a merchant in Philadelphia, and a Quaker, whose ancestors had come to America from Wales in the seventeenth century, and who removed to Halifax, Nova Scotia. There Sir Samuel was born, November 21st, 1787. His parents were not in affluent circumstances; indeed he has been heard to tell that, when a boy, he often went about the streets with a basket on his arm selling herbs that were grown in his mother’s garden, to earn “an honest penny.” In course of time, however, he became a prosperous merchant and the owner of whaling-ships that sailed from Halifax to the Pacific Ocean. How he came to identify himself with the Atlantic mail service has already been mentioned, and little else remains to be said about him. He was small of stature, but a man of rare intelligence; a keen observer of men and things, and who had the faculty, largely developed, of influencing other men. In private life he was one of the most gentle and lovable of men. He married, in 1815, a daughter of Mr. W. Duffus, of Halifax, by whom he had nine children. On March 9th, 1859, Her Majesty, on the recommendation of Lord Palmerston, made him a Baronet, in recognition of his services to the realm and to other countries in promoting the means of inter-communication. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1846. He died in London, April 28th, 1865, leaving, it is said, a fortune of £350,000. His title and his interest in the business were inherited by his eldest son, Sir Edward Cunard, at whose decease, in 1869, the reins of administration fell into the hands of his brother William, who married a daughter of the late celebrated Judge Haliburton, of Nova Scotia, and who now represents the company in London.

Sir George Burns was, in many respects, a remarkable man. He was born in the Holy Land, a name popularly given to a “land” of houses in Glasgow, in which five ministers resided, one of them being his father, the Rev. John Burns, D.D., of the old Barony parish, who ministered in that place for seventy-two years, and who died at the patriarchal age of ninety-six. George was born in 1795. He commenced business in Glasgow with his brother James, under the firm of G. & J. Burns & Co., a name that has ever since been famous in shipping circles. They began steam navigation to Liverpool and Belfast over seventy years since, and gradually built up a large and lucrative business. Many years ago Mr. Burns retired and took up his residence at Wemyss Bay, on the estuary of the Clyde, where he spent the evening of his days, and was frequently seen sitting among his rhododendrons and laurels, watching his steamers as they coursed up and down the Firth. He was created a Baronet in his old age, May 24th, 1889. He died on the 2nd of June in the following year, being succeeded by his son, Sir John Burns, of Castle Wemyss, who is chairman of the Board of Directors of the Cunard Steamship Company. Sir John’s elevation to the peerage, at the time of Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee, when he assumed the name of Lord Inverclyde, was regarded as a well-merited honour by his countrymen, and in shipping circles generally.

Although he was a son of the “Father of the Church of Scotland,” Sir George early in life contracted a liking for the liturgical service of the Church of England, and eventually became an Episcopalian. “Sir George Burns, Bart.: His Times and Friends, by Edwin Hodder; Hodder and Stoughton, London,” is the title of an admirable biography in which is to be found a fine portraiture of a man “diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” As a business man he is described as “honourable in the minutest particulars, accurate in all his dealings, faithful to every trust, tenacious of every promise, disdaining to take the least advantage of the weakness or incapacity of any man.” There is also much information in this volume, bearing on the history of the Cunard Line, that is valuable and interesting, and of which we have freely availed ourselves in compiling these pages.

David MacIver, a Scotchman, as his name implies, had lived a good many years in Liverpool before his connection with the Cunard Company, and had acquired a great deal of valuable experience in shipping affairs. His first intercourse with Burns was somewhat singular in the light of their future alliance. It was as the agent of an opposition line of steamers, plying between Liverpool and Glasgow, that their friendship began. A Manchester firm had started an opposition line, but they were no match for G. and J. Burns, who eventually bought them out, and secured a monopoly of the trade, except the small steamer Enterprise, for which David MacIver was agent, and which the same firm cleverly bought also. Not to be outdone, MacIver succeeded in organizing the “New City of Glasgow Steam-Packet Company,” of which he became the Liverpool agent. Determined, if possible, to drive his rivals from the seas, it is said that he used to sail in the vessels himself, urging his officers to increased speed. But it was of no use; the new company were soon glad to accept offers for amalgamation, and from that time MacIver and Burns became fast friends. Mr. MacIver had first-rate executive ability, and as most of the working details devolved upon him, he had a controlling influence in the Cunard Line while he lived. The well-known firm of D. & C. MacIver were the managers of the line at Liverpool, from its formation until the year 1883, when they resigned, a Board of Directors assuming the entire control of affairs. David MacIver, however, had died in 1845, when the Liverpool agency fell into the hands of his brother and partner, Charles, whose able supervision continued for thirty-five years.

Robert Napier was born at Dumbarton in 1791. After serving his apprenticeship as millwright and smith, he went to Edinburgh, where he wrought at his trade for some time, earning ten shillings a week. Inspired by the old Scotch motto, “He that tholes overcomes,” he stuck to it. Later, he entered the service of Robert Stephenson, the celebrated engineer, and made his mark as a mechanical genius. At twenty-four years of age he commenced business on his own account, in Glasgow, where he gradually built up the large engineering and ship-building business subsequently carried on under the name of Robert Napier & Sons. The “Lancefield Works” and his Govan shipyards attained world-wide celebrity. He constructed the machinery for the SS. British Queen, and for the first four Cunard steamers, and for many others in later years. He also received large orders for warships and transports from the British Admiralty and from foreign governments. He built several large ironclads for the Royal Navy. He made the engines for the great three-decker, Duke of Wellington—all but the last of the “wooden walls.” He built and engined the famous Cunarders Persia and Scotia.

ROBERT NAPIER AND MRS. NAPIER.

Mr. Napier erected a princely mansion on the Gareloch, named Shandon House, where his declining years were spent in retirement, but in the exercise of unbounded hospitality, as the writer can testify from his personal experience. Shandon House came to be like a museum containing a rare collection of pictures and antiquities from almost all parts of the world. Among his curios none was more highly prized than his mother’s spinning-wheel, and the painting that he valued the most was the portrait of his wife plying the same old-fashioned spinning-wheel, with which she had been familiar from girlhood. Does it not seem like the “irony of fate,” and a melancholy commentary on the transitory nature of everything mundane, that this marvellous accumulation of articles of virtu was, shortly after Mr. Napier’s death, sold by public auction to the highest bidder, and that his palatial residence passed into the hands of a hydropathic company?

Having said so much about the Cunard Line, there is no need to dwell at similar length upon any of the other transatlantic lines of steamers. The history of the Cunard Line is the history of Atlantic steam navigation. It commenced at a time when steam power had only been used as an auxiliary to sails, but when that order of affairs was soon to be reversed. The intervening years have witnessed the transition from wooden ships to iron, and from iron to steel; from the paddle-wheel to the single screw-propeller, and then to the twin-screw; from the simple side-lever engines to the compound, and from the compound to the triple and quadruple expansion engines of the present time. These successive changes, common to all the other important lines of ocean steamers, have resulted in greatly increased speed with economy of fuel. But no one at all conversant with the subject supposes that the limit in either of these directions has been reached. Her Majesty’s torpedo boats can easily reel off their thirty knots an hour; why not an express steamer?

The competition for the supremacy of the sea in these latitudes has been both keen and costly, but greatly to the benefit of the travelling community; and it has all along been conducted in an excellent spirit. Circumstances have frequently arisen when it might have been easy to take advantage of a rival, but when it resulted in acts of chivalry. Sir John Burns has mentioned one instance out of many such that have transpired: On a certain occasion the Cunard steamer Alps was seized in New York for an alleged infraction of the Customs laws on the part of some of the crew, and before she could be released, security had to be given to the extent of £30,000 sterling; when, “who should come forward and stand security for the Cunard Company but the great firm of Brown, Shipley & Co., the agents of the Collins Line!” Another case in point is connected with the foundering of the Cunard SS. Oregon. When the whole of the passengers and crew, to the number of nearly a thousand, had been taken off the sinking ship, and landed in New York by the North German Lloyd SS. Fulda, the question having been asked what compensation was demanded, the courteous reply was speedily received: “Highly gratified at having been instrumental in saving so many lives. No claim!”[15]

The Fairfield Ship-building and Engineering Company is one of the most famous of the many eminent ship-building firms in Britain. The yards at Govan on the Clyde occupy an area of sixty acres of ground, and employ from 6,000 to 7,000 men. The shops are fitted with machinery of the most approved description, in which every requisite of marine architecture has a place, where massive plates of steel and iron are clipped, shaped and pierced with rivet holes as if they were only sheets of wax or paper. Here have been built many of the record-breaking ocean greyhounds, as well as armour-plated cruisers for the Royal Navy. The Arizona, the Alaska and the Oregon were built here, and were accounted marvels in their day. The Umbria and Etruria, the Campania and the Lucania have secured for Fairfield a world-wide reputation. Ships for Sir Donald Currie’s Castle Line, for the Orient and the Hamburg-American lines, not to speak of the Isle of Man steamers, the swiftest coasting steamers of the day, have been built at Govan. Under the name of Randolph, Elder & Company the firm was founded, or rather reconstructed, by the late Mr. John Elder, a man of consummate ability in his profession, who died in 1869 at the early age of forty-five years.

The compound engine, by which steam is made to do double duty, is one of the most important of recent improvements in marine engineering, being the means of largely increasing the motive power and decreasing the consumption of fuel. The successful application of this system to ocean steam navigation is usually attributed to Mr. John Elder, of the above-named firm, who introduced it in some of the steamers of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company as early as 1856.[16] But it did not come into general use until some years later. The Admiralty, recognizing the importance claimed for the discovery, resolved to test its value, in 1863, by sending three ships of similar size on a voyage from Plymouth to Madeira, two of them being fitted with the ordinary engines of the day, and the third, the Constance, with Elder’s compound engine. The result placed the superiority of the compound engine beyond question, and led up to the triple and quadruple expansion engine which has revolutionized the ship-building and shipping interests; hence the enormous cargoes carried by ships of the Pennsylvania type, with a moderate consumption of fuel and the lowering of ocean freight rates.

Before taking leave of the Cunard Line, it may not be out of place to mention that an employee of that line has the distinction of having crossed the Atlantic more frequently than any other man. One is apt to think of his own voyages—thirty-five or forty—as a tolerably fair showing, but that is as nothing compared with other landsmen. On one occasion the writer sat next to a fine old French gentleman from Quebec who was then making his hundredth voyage; he was an octogenarian. Some years later a Montreal merchant, nearly a quarter of a century younger, informed me that he had crossed the ocean one hundred and eighty times! Taking his years into account, surely he must be entitled to wear the blue ribbon. As to sailors, an English newspaper recently offered a prize of £10 to the man who could prove that he had crossed the Atlantic oftenest. The prize was awarded to Captain Brooks, of Alaska, who had made seven hundred trips. In the meantime, however, it transpired that the distinction was due to another “old salt,” whose record far outran that of Captain Brooks, but whose modesty prevented him from applying for the prize. The real champion is George Paynter, well known throughout England and America as “the Old Man of the Sea,” who recently completed his eight hundred and fourth voyage across the Atlantic. Paynter is the officer in charge of the wines and liquors on board the SS. Etruria. He is one of the most remarkable men afloat to-day. He has been forty-eight years at sea, of which forty-five have been spent continuously in the service of the Cunard Company, and in all that time he has never encountered either a shipwreck or a cyclone. He is now seventy-five years old, hale and hearty as ever, and this he attributes to his having given up smoking and drinking thirty-one years ago, not having once indulged in either from that time until now.

CHAPTER IV.
NORTH ATLANTIC STEAMSHIP COMPANIES.

The Collins Line.

THE earliest formidable rival to the Cunard Line was the famous Collins Line, founded in New York in 1848, and which derived its name from Mr. E. K. Collins, its chief promoter, who had previously been largely interested in sailing ships, and more particularly in the splendid line of New York and Liverpool packets, popularly known as the Dramatic Line. The Collins Line started with a fair wind, so to speak. It was launched by a wealthy company, amid an outburst of national applause, and was liberally backed by the Federal Government, with an ill-concealed determination to drive the Cunarders from the seas. But the illusion was destined to be soon dispelled, for, as Charles MacIver put it in writing to Mr. Cunard, “The Collins Line are beginning to find that breaking our windows with sovereigns, though very fine fun, is too costly to keep up.” Disasters ensued. In ten years the losses had become stupendous, and the enterprise culminated in a total collapse.

The Line began with a fleet of four magnificent wooden paddle-wheel steamships, the Atlantic, Arctic, Baltic and Pacific, each 282 feet in length, and of 2,680 tons burthen. They were built by W. H. Brown, of New York, and combined in their construction and machinery the then latest improvements. The passenger accommodation was far superior to that of the Cunard steamers of the period. Each of them cost $700,000, an amount so far exceeding the original estimate that the Government had to make the company an advance. The credit of the country being in a sense at stake, provision was made for a liberal subsidy. $19,250 per annum had been the original sum specified for a service of twenty round voyages, but that was found to be totally inadequate, and the Government eventually agreed to increase the subsidy to $33,000 per voyage, or $858,000 per annum for only twenty-six voyages, which was more than double what had been paid to the Cunard Company for a like service. The Collins Line, however, promised greater speed than their rivals, and that counts for much in popular estimation.

THE “ATLANTIC,” OF THE COLLINS LINE, 1849.

The Line soon came into favour, and its success seemed to be assured. The first voyage was commenced from New York by the Atlantic, April 27th, 1849. The Arctic followed, making the eastward voyage in 9 days, 13 hours and 30 minutes; and the westward, in 9 days and 13 hours from Liverpool. Thus they had broken all previous records for speed which, added to their luxurious appointments, caused them to be loyally patronized by the Americans. For a time they carried 50 per cent. more passengers from Liverpool to New York than their opponents. The last addition to the fleet was the Adriatic, in 1857, by far the finest and fastest vessel afloat at that time. She was built by Steers, at New York: was 355 feet long, and 50 feet broad; her gross tonnage being 3,670. Her machinery, which was constructed at the Novelty Iron-Works, New York, consisted of two oscillating cylinders, each 100 inches in diameter, working up to 3,600 indicated horse-power, with a steam pressure of 20 lbs. to the square inch. Her paddles were 40 feet in diameter, and, at seventeen revolutions per minute, gave her a speed of thirteen knots on a daily consumption of eighty-five to ninety tons of coal.

Owing to financial embarrassments, resulting from losses by shipwreck, the company soon after broke up, and the richly-endowed fast line, that was to drive the Cunarders off the ocean, itself came to grief. The Adriatic was laid up after making a few fine voyages, and finally came to an ignominious end as a coal-hulk in West Africa. In September, 1854, the Arctic collided with a small steamer, the Vesta, off Cape Race, in a dense fog, and sank, with the loss of 323 lives. Captain Luce went down with his ship, but rose again to the surface, was picked up by one of the boats and landed in safety. Among those who were drowned were the wife, the only son, and a daughter of Mr. Collins, and many other prominent Americans. The loss of the Pacific, which followed two years later, proved the death-knell of the Collins Line. She sailed from Liverpool on June 26th, 1856, in command of Captain Eldridge, with forty-five passengers and a crew of 141, and was never afterwards heard of. The Atlantic and Baltic were sold and converted into sailing ships.

Mr. E. K. Collins was a native of Massachusetts, where he was born in 1802. When a youth he went to sea as supercargo. Some years later he joined his father in the general shipping business, and eventually became head of the New York firm, celebrated for its magnificent line of sailing packets. He died in 1878.

“CITY OF PARIS,” 1889.
Now (1898) a U. S. armed cruiser and renamed Harvard.

The Inman and International Line.

This famous Line took its name from William Inman, a partner in the firm of Richardson Bros., Liverpool, in connection with whom he founded this steamship service in 1850, under the title of the Liverpool, New York and Philadelphia Steamship Company. The line began with only two steamers—the City of Glasgow and City of Manchester—both screw steamships, built by Messrs. Tod and McGregor, of Glasgow. These boats having proved successful and profitable, and especially popular with emigrants, their shipping port was changed from Philadelphia to New York in 1857. In the meantime a number of high-class steamers had been added to the fleet, each improving upon its predecessor, until the line became famous for speed and comfort. The City of Brussels, launched in 1869, was the first on the Atlantic to reduce the voyage to less than eight days. This fine ship came to grief through collision with another vessel off the mouth of the Mersey during a dense fog, January 7th, 1883. The Inman Line met with a number of other heavy losses. The City of Glasgow, with 480 persons on board, and the City of Boston both disappeared mysteriously in mid-ocean; the City of Montreal was burned at sea, but all hands were saved; the City of Washington and City of Philadelphia were wrecked on the coast of Nova Scotia; the first City of New York and the City of Chicago became total wrecks on the Irish coast, the one on Daunt’s Rock near Queenstown, the other on the Old Head of Kinsale in the same neighbourhood.

The City of Berlin, which came out in 1875, proved a great success, but later additions, culminating in the new City of New York and City of Paris, gained this line for a time undisputed supremacy. These twin-screw ships, built by J. & G. Thomson, of Glasgow, are over 500 feet in length, rated at 10,500 tons, and 18,000 indicated horse-power, and have developed a high rate of speed. The Paris, as she is now called, made her maiden trip in May, 1889, in 5 days, 22 hours, 50 minutes. Her fastest westward trip was made in October, 1892, viz., 5 days, 14 hours, 24 minutes—the fastest ever made up to that time. The New York for some time held the record for the fastest voyage from Southampton to Sandy Hook, made in September, 1894—6 days, 7 hours, 14 minutes. Both ships have met with mishaps: the New York, going east, had one of her engines disabled, but completed the voyage with the other, actually running 382 knots in one day with only one engine at work. The Paris had a much more alarming accident. The breaking of one of her main shafts set the engine a-racing, and before it could be stopped a rent was made in the ship’s hull, the longitudinal bulkhead separating the engine-rooms was broken and both engine-rooms were flooded. The other bulkheads, however, did their duty and kept her afloat until a passing steamer towed her into Queenstown, where the water was pumped out and she proceeded to Liverpool unassisted. Her escape from destruction was marvellous: as it was, the damage to the ship and machinery was enormous. On another occasion the same ship’s rudder became disabled in mid-ocean, but by means of her twin screws she was kept on her course and brought safely to port. Since then she has limped across the Atlantic with one engine, owing to a broken shaft.

“CITY OF PARIS”—HER TWIN SCREWS.
From “Our Ocean Railways.”

“CITY OF PARIS”—DINING ROOM UNDER THE DOME.

The Inman Line was the first to introduce the twin-screw in the Atlantic service. It was also the first to place the comforts and conveniences of steam navigation within the reach of emigrant steerage passengers, and by so doing made a distinct advance in the cause of humanity. In 1856-57 they carried no less than 85,000 emigrants.

The Inman Line passed from its founders in 1875, and became a private limited company, which, in 1886, entered into negotiations with the American International Navigation Company, better known as the Red Star Line. At that time the fleet consisted of the City of Berlin, City of Chester, City of Chicago, City of Richmond and City of Montreal. The New York and Paris hoisted the American flag in 1893, but the change consequent on their new registration and their re-christening made no change in the name of the company.

In 1892 the company secured a contract for carrying the United States mails, weekly, from New York to Southampton, in consideration of a subsidy, amounting to about $750,000 a year. Southampton was preferred to Liverpool as being much nearer London and as having exceptionally good harbour facilities. The sea voyage, however, is about 200 miles longer than from New York to Queenstown. In terms of their contract, two magnificent twin-screw steamers have recently been added to the fleet,—the St. Louis and St. Paul, built on the Delaware by Messrs. Cramp and Sons, of Philadelphia. They are claimed to be the embodiment of the finest American skill and workmanship. Over 6,000 tons of steel were used in the construction of the hull of each ship; their length over all is 554 feet, breadth 63 feet, depth 42 feet; their gross tonnage is 11,000 tons and their engines are of 20,000 horse-power. They are designed to carry 320 first-class, 200 second, and 800 steerage passengers, and the arrangements for each class are unsurpassed. The main saloon is 110 feet long by 50 feet wide, with seats for all her cabin passengers at one sitting. It is handsomely decorated and finished in white mahogany, and is well lighted from the sides and a lofty dome overhead. The drawing-room is in white and gold and luxuriously furnished. The staterooms are roomy, well ventilated and fitted up with every convenience necessary to comfort; there are also suites of rooms, comprising bedroom, bath-room and sitting-room, all elegantly furnished. These ships can carry enough coal, cargo being excluded, to cross the Atlantic and return at their highest speed; and at the ordinary cruiser’s speed of 10 to 12 knots, they can steam for 66 days without recoaling a distance of 19,000 knots.

“ST LOUIS.”
Now (1898) a U. S. armed cruiser.

Although these fine ships have already suffered several vexatious accidents, none of them have been attended with serious results. They have not yet taken the laurels from the Campania and Lucania, and are not likely to do so, but they have made very good time on the Atlantic. The St. Louis made the voyage from New York to Southampton in August, 1895, in 6 days, 13 hours, 12 minutes. The St. Paul[17] made the run from Southampton to Sandy Hook, in August, 1896, in 6 days, 57 minutes. Their estimated speed in ordinary weather is 21 knots an hour.

The entire Inman fleet consists of twenty-two ships—all of a high class. They retained the graceful overhanging bow and ship-shape bowsprit with its belongings to the last, but the new steamers of the American Line conform in this respect to the prevailing fashion of the straight stem, first introduced by the Collins Line as being economical of space and every way handier in port. The use of sails in full-powered steamships has been gradually declining for years, and they will soon be a thing of the past. Heavy masts and yard-arms seriously interfere with the motion of a twenty knot steamship, and except in the case of a breakdown of machinery are seldom of any use, and that contingency has been reduced to a minimum by the introduction of the twin-screw.

The Red Star Line,

originally owned by a Belgian company, is now incorporated with the American and International Navigation Company, and maintains a weekly service between New York and Antwerp and a fortnightly line from Philadelphia to Antwerp. The fleet consists of nine steamships of from 3,000 to 7,000 tons each—the largest being the Friesland, built by Thomsons, Glasgow, and rated at fifteen knots’ speed.

The Anchor Line.

This was the first successful line of steamers running from Glasgow to New York, established by Messrs. Handyside and Henderson, of Glasgow, in 1856, though it was not until 1863 that this branch of their business assumed much importance. Since then the trade has developed rapidly, giving employment to a weekly line of steamers, and in summer twice a week. The ships have large carrying capacity, from 3,000 to 5,000 tons and upwards, with good accommodation for passengers at very moderate rates. Among these are the Furnessia and Belgravia, of over five thousand tons; the Devonia, Anchoria, Bolivia and Circassia, upwards of four thousand tons each, not to speak of the City of Rome, a host in herself. This is one of the handsomest ships afloat, and of large dimensions, being 546 feet long between perpendiculars, and 600 feet over all; her width is 52 feet 4 inches, and her displacement at 25 feet draft of water, 13,500 tons. She is driven by three sets of inverted tandem engines of 10,000 horse-power; her single screw is 24 feet diameter, and the screw shaft 25 inches. She has ample accommodation for 270 cabin passengers and 1,500 steerage: was built in 1881 for the Inman Line at Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire, where all the above-named ships were also built, but as she did not come up to the requisite speed she was left in the builders’ hands, and was taken over by the Anchor Line. She is not a slow ship, having made 18½ knots on her trial trip, and has crossed the Atlantic in 6 days, 20 hours, 35 minutes. From whatever cause, outsiders look upon her as a sort of “white elephant,” unable to compete successfully with the more thorough-paced ocean greyhounds. The entire Anchor Line fleet consists of some thirty-five steamers. The company has had its own share of losses by shipwreck, and more than its share of lives lost. One of the most appalling marine disasters was the sinking of the Eutopia of this line in the Bay of Gibraltar, in 1891, from collision with a man-of-war lying at anchor, resulting in the loss of 526 lives.

The National Steam Navigation Company.

Although the National Line has not entered into competition with the “greyhounds,” it is deserving of notice. It has been in existence since 1863, and has owned some fine ships, and at least one of high speed—the America, built on the Clyde in 1883—a ship of 5,500 tons and 7,350 horse-power. She broke the record in June, 1884, making the run home from New York in 6 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes.[18] She was soon after sold to the Italian Government for a transport. The ships of this line were among the first to have compound engines, and the first to have refrigerators for the reception of dead meat, and among the first to carry large shipments of live cattle. Years ago they brought out more emigrants than any other line, but they seem to have gone out of that business now, and the ships are run as freighters to London. Four of the company’s ships have been lost—one lies submerged near Sandy Hook, one foundered off Cape Finisterre, one was burned at sea, and the fourth, the Erin, disappeared without anything having been heard of her. The present fleet consists of eight ships, ranging from 3,750 to 5,300 tons.

The Guion Line.

As when a meteor shoots athwart the skies, emitting a blaze of light, and quickly disappears, so was it with the Guion Line at the zenith of its brief and brilliant career. It began in a modest way in 1866, its promoters being Messrs. Williams and Guion, of New York—with a branch firm in Liverpool—these being the owners of the famous Black Ball Line of ships, built especially for carrying emigrants. They had steamers built for themselves with marvellous rapidity, beginning with the Manhattan of 3,000 tons—an iron screw steamer built on the Tyne. In 1872 there was added to the then existing fleet of eight powerful ships, each having accommodation for 1,000 steerage passengers, a pair of larger vessels, the Montana and Dakota. Neither of them, however, proved to be “record-breakers,” and both of them were eventually wrecked on the Welsh coast, near the same place, in 1877 and 1880 respectively. The next additions to the fleet were the celebrated Arizona and Alaska, that for a time took the shine out of everything else afloat. These marvellous ships were built by John Elder & Co., of Glasgow. The former was over 5,000 tons and the latter nearly 7,000. Their engines, respectively 6,000 and 10,000 horse-power, are said to have been the finest ever constructed up to that time; their speed was then accounted quite phenomenal—seventeen and eighteen knots an hour—reducing the time from Queenstown to New York to 6 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes. That was in 1883. The last ship built for the Guion Line was still larger and faster than these. The Oregon was 500 feet long, of 7,375 tons, and 13,300 horse-power. In 1883 she still further reduced the record to 6 days, 10 hours, 10 minutes. Soon after this the company became involved in financial difficulties. “Record-breaking” had not proved to be a paying business. The Oregon passed into the hands of the Cunard Company, and went to the bottom of the sea as already stated; the Alaska and Arizona have lain rusting at their moorings in the Gareloch for years past.

The White Star Line.

The Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, Limited—better known as the White Star Line—commenced in 1869, and now occupies a position in the front rank of the great steamship enterprises of the world. It originated with Mr. Thomas Henry Ismay, of Liverpool, who had previously been manager of the White Star Line of sailing clipper ships in the Australian trade. In 1870 Mr. William Imrie, of the late firm of Imrie, Tomlinson & Co., became associated with Mr. Ismay in the management, when the firm took its present name, Ismay, Imrie & Co. Mr. Ismay retired from the firm in 1891, after forty years of active business life, but is still chairman of the White Star Line. Having the financial support of a number of influential shipping men, plans that had been long maturing took effect in 1869, when negotiations were entered into with Messrs. Harland and Wolff, of Belfast, to build a fleet of steamships which should combine the latest improvements, the best possible accommodation for passengers, with a speed that would assure fast and regular voyages. How well those conditions have been secured all who have travelled by the White Star Line can testify.