E. Keble Chatterton

“ Whether steamships will flourish much longer, or whether they will in turn be surpassed, as they have ousted the sailing ship, is a debatable proposition. At any rate, to anyone who has at heart one of the greatest and most powerful forces in the spread of civilisation, the story of steamship evolution, from comparative inutility to a state of efficiency which is remarkable even in this wonder age, cannot but appeal with an attractiveness commensurate with its importance. ”

“ Because, then, of this mutual inter-dependence we shall give the palm to no individual, but endeavour to show how, step by step, the ship has shaken herself free of entire slavery to the wind, one age helping her a little in her ambition, others sending her forward farther still towards her goal. Chance plays so curious a game with progress. A genius may spring up too early or too late to be appreciated. He may be hailed as a dangerous lunatic or as a benefactor of mankind, according to whether the time was ripe for his appearance.
Papin, as we shall see presently, was born out of due season. ”

“ It is one of the most striking characteristics of our nature that we proceed along that road offering the least resistance and requiring the smallest amount of endeavour. Not more true is this assertion to-day than in the ages which have sunk into oblivion, and but for this human instinct, or failing, the progress of the world would have been impossible. The prehistoric man found the action of paddling his dug-out so irksome and wearying that he invented the sail as a means of harnessing the wind to do his work, and, as a result, what does the world not owe to his apparent laziness? ”

“ When we read of fine,214 handsome, well-found modern liners going astray in the broad ocean, or of excellent, capable little cross-channel steamships foundering between port and port, without any living witnesses to tell how it all happened, we have a reminder that the ways of man are clever beyond all words, but that Nature is cleverer still. What the future of the steamship will be no one can tell. Already ship-builders profess themselves capable of turning out a monster up to 1,000 feet in length. ”

“ Some of them go out into the world far beyond the horizon and vanish until a few weeks or months later they come returning homewards proud of their achievements as the safe carriers of mails and passengers. But there are other members of the same family whose duty keeps them close to the home where they first saw the light; who rarely venture out of sight of land. There are others who, though they never carry any passengers but their crew, nor an ounce of cargo, are yet as useful to the human race as those great speed-makers which go rushing through night and day across the ocean. ”

“ And so, arriving at Münden, the watermen, either through fear that this new self-propelling craft would take away their livelihood through inaugurating a fresh era, or, being envious of a success which no man had ever before obtained, they attacked this steamboat, smashed it to pieces, and Papin himself barely escaped with his life. Thus, a craft and its engines, which to-day would be welcomed by any museum in the world, was annihilated by the men who had the privilege of witnessing the first steamship. ”

“ Among the gifts to humanity there is not included that of taming the sea. She is tyrannical in her strength, untamable, dominant; and when you launch into her bosom heavy masses of iron or steel, and deceive yourself with high-sounding names—call them Great Easterns, Majestics, Indomitables, Titanics, and the rest—the Sea only laughs at you, for she knows perfectly well that a blow or two from her mighty arm will end their days and settle their fate for all time. ”

“ Passengers and freights were in a hurry to get from shore to shore, and, later, perishable food supplies could not be entrusted to the sailing ship. And so, when once the steamship had appeared, even though not as a pronounced success, yet the spirit of the times was such that she should be encouraged as being likely to satisfy the cravings of an active, restless age.
In the history of human progress we find everywhere exemplified a continuous effort through centuries and centuries of change to obtain an end with the least expenditure of labour. ”

“ Although nowadays there is scarcely a corner of the world to which a regular line of steamships does not run, yet it is the North Atlantic that has always been the scene of the greatest enterprise in steamship development. We could find plenty of reasons for this if we cared to inquire into the matter. It was not until the advent of the transatlantic steamship that all the possibilities of the Tudor voyages and discoveries began to be appreciated fully. A continent, like a single country, flourishes not merely by its produce of wealth, but by its exchange thereof. ”

“ It is obvious to every landsman that whatever seaworthy qualities the forward end of a boat thus designed may possess, the smashing blows which her obstinate form exchanges with the waves must be a great hindrance to progress over the water in comparison with the clean, knife-like movement of the more scientifically designed craft. And so, long before ever the clipper-ships appeared, the same idea struck David Napier. ”

“ Making a ship is something less prosaic, a million times more romantic, than making a house, for the reason that whilst the ship, as long as she remains on the stocks, is just so many thousand tons of material, yet from the very moment when she first kisses the water she becomes a living thing, intelligent, with a character of her own, distinct and recognisable. ”

“ And the designers and builders of the Mauretania and Lusitania to-day would be among the first to admit that such achievements as these mammoth ships are but the results of all that has gone before: in other words, it is evolution rather than sudden invention.
Genius is the exclusive possession of no particular nation, still less of any particular age: but it needs just that happy condition of opportunity which means so little or may mean so much. ”

“ We can only doff our hats to the organising and originating geniuses who in one way or another brought these marvels from out of the realm of impossibility to the actuality of the broad Atlantic. Cover them with tier upon tier of decks, scatter over them a forest of ventilators, roofs and chimneys, till they look like the tops of a small town; fill them inside with handsome furniture, line their walls with costly decorations; throw in a few electric cranes, a coal mine, several restaurants, the population of a large-sized village and a good many other things besides ”

“ It is curious how the channel service of a steamship line presents difficulties and problems of its own no less than those demanded by the ownership of ocean-going steamships. Obviously the short-voyage ship is limited as to size. What she has to accomplish must be done quickly. Not only must she get out of one harbour and into the other with the greatest economy of time, but she must get up her full speed at once. Then, again, owing to the demands of the passengers for special comfort a great strain is put on the patience of those responsible, as well as on the designer of the ship. ”

“ After all, the Atlantic and the other oceans were made by the Great Designer as barriers between separate continents, and although we speak of them casually as rather of the nature of a herring-pond, and build our big ships to act as ferries, yet are we not flying in the face of Nature, and asking for trouble? In the fight between Man and Nature, it is fairly plain on which side victory will eventually come, in spite of a series of clever dodges which throughout history man has conceived and put into practice for outwitting her. ”

“ We must cast our eyes in the direction of the Clyde, where Henry Bell had interested himself in the steamboat problem. Like others before him, he had begun his experiments at first with hand-driven paddle-wheels, but it was not long before the inevitable conclusion was thrust on him that the power ought to be derived not from human force, but from steam. It was he who had talked the matter over with Fulton, and had actually accompanied the latter when a visit was paid to Symington and the two men witnessed a trial trip of the Charlotte Dundas. ”

“ One greatly improved liner nowadays so quickly surpasses her predecessor; the age of obsolescence now moves at so greatly quickened a speed; that the general public, whose memory is also so short-lived, scarcely has time to appreciate all that the latest steamship means ere it has passed quietly from service and been handed over to the ship-breakers, or, under a new flag and a changed name, continues its work at some remote corner of the world. ”

“ We have also watched the change from paddle-wheels to a single screw, and thence to twin-screws. Each change has seemed to be so excellent in its nature, so beneficial in results, that almost on each occasion we might have thought that finality had been reached. At times our minds have been wearied with the constant reiteration of the latest wonders, and our imaginations have found some difficulty in responding to the demands which one invention after another has put forward. ”

“ How else would new countries have been discovered and peopled, commerce extended to nations beyond the seas, untilled areas made to yield their fruitful produce, and wealth amassed by production and exchange of commodities? It was not until Europe had at last begun to build her big caravels and caracks,5 and to learn how to handle them with adequate seamanship, that the art of navigation advanced so far as to enable Columbus to sail across the Atlantic, and to lay the foundation of the prosperity of the New World. ”

“ It is by no means an unfitting simile if I suggest that we liken the invention of steam to the discovery of the potentialities of the edge. Until the coming of the former we may well say that progress, as we now know it, remained stagnant, at any rate in respect of rapid movement. Omitting other uses for steam not pertinent to our present subject, we may affirm that in annihilating space, in quickly bridging over the trackless expanse of oceans, steamships have succeeded in accelerating the development of the countries of the world. ”

“ May the time not come when rest and simplicity will again replace excessive strenuousness and restore to the Atlantic something of its plain expansiveness, and take back the character which it has now developed as being merely a race-track for ocean greyhounds? However much designers, shipbuilders and engineers may conspire together; whatever inventions man in his brilliant efforts may succeed in bringing about, the solid fact remains that Nature is superior in force to all these. ”

“ As the reverse of being specially adapted for a particular service, the steam tramp is built so that she can readily engage in almost any carrying trade. Unlike the liner with her fixed routes and set times of departure and arrival, the tramp is a nomad, and wanders over the world picking up a cargo here and there, and taking it across the ocean at her economical but jog-trot speed. If there is nothing for her to pick up at the last port of call she betakes herself elsewhere with the hope of better luck. Her main income is derived as a coal-carrier, and for this she is quite suited. ”

“ In the realm of steamships there has been scarcely any parallel to the rapid development which that nation exhibited, so that within a remarkably short space of time she became able not merely to build her own ships, but of a size that had been exceeded only by the Great Eastern, and with a speed that no liner of any sort or of any nationality had ever yet attained. It is fitting, therefore, to give here a brief sketch of the manner in which this new competition originated, for to this undoubtedly is due the coming of the mammoth ships represented by the Mauretania and Lusitania. ”

“ Never in the history of the world has so much been accomplished for obtaining mechanical energy as within the last hundred and fifty years, and never perhaps has the individual been able to possess himself of so much freedom.
But even in those days when slaves could be made to work to the limits of their endurance, it is fairly evident that man believed that there was a future for the mechanical propulsion of ships, and the usual form which this took was of applying paddle-wheels to the side of the ship, and revolving these by means of a capstan turned either by slaves or by oxen. ”

“ When the prehistoric man was returning home from his day’s fishing or hunting, and the evening breeze had died away to a flat calm so that the primitive sail became for the time a hindrance rather than a saving of labour, and the tired navigator was compelled reluctantly to resort to his paddles once more—it was, no doubt, then that our ancestry was first inoculated with the germ for desiring some mechanical form of propulsion, and the fever went on developing until it broke out in full infection when the possibilities of steam were beginning to be weighed. ”

“ Thus, one by one, problems arise to thwart the hand of man, but only to be overcome by the latter through patience and the knowledge which comes after much thought and actual experience. Not merely in seaworthiness, nor in the matter of speed, has the steamship reached what even the most blasé must call the limit, but the same enterprising spirit which has brought this about has also provided that comfort is also of an importance that demands the most detailed attention. ”

“ But, like the Arizona, this Oregon was born unlucky. Off the North American coast she was run into and sunk by a sailing ship, though the passengers and mails were happily saved. The Oregon had a tonnage of 7,375, and was driven by direct-acting inverted engines which developed the remarkable sum of 13,500 horse-power, and produced the equally wonderful speed of 18 knots per hour, thus earning for her the name of the “Greyhound of the Atlantic.” ”

“ In America Watt’s beam engines were imitated very closely, and to-day, as every visitor to New York is aware, the curious sight is seen of enormous ferry-boats, towering high above the water, with the beam and connecting rods showing up through the top of the ship. Now this idea is all very well where the steamer is concerned only with navigation on rivers and peaceful waters, but for ocean steaming, where the deck needs to be covered in from the attacks of the mighty seas, it is out of the question. ”

“ There must be, man reasoned, some means for propelling a ship along the water other than by sails or oars. The Chinese had been working at the idea, the Romans had at least attempted it; through the Middle Ages there had been actually accredited instances, and so the eighteenth century was not too soon for its accomplishment. Thus, when Papin determined to apply steam power to vessels, he was just one of those many benefactors of the world who have succeeded by means of Nature to overcome Nature: by employing fire and water to overcome water and space. ”

“ We pass now to another type of steamship, which is endowed with as much distinctive character as the steam tug. The steam trawler may not be as smart as a steam yacht nor as fast as a torpedo destroyer; yet, for all that, she is able to encounter as bad weather and—size for size—is perhaps a good deal better sea-boat. ”

“ To have attained such a feat by the means of physical propulsion would have been impossible; it was only by the invention of the sail and the perfection of the sailing ship after many centuries of experimenting that this came about. For man’s endurance is hedged in by stern limits. He can only work for part of the day, and he must eat and sleep. But by yoking the wind to the sail the voyage could be continued without the necessity for plying the oar, and most of the crew could be below at their rest or their meals. ”