Steam navigation

“ No force is merely blind. It is the function of man to keep watch upon these natural agents, and to discover their laws.
While these laws are still in great part undiscovered, the struggle continues, and in this struggle navigation, by the help of steam, is a perpetual victory won by human skill every hour of the day, and upon every point of the sea. The admirable feature in steam navigation is, that it disciplines the very ship herself. It diminishes her obedience to the winds, and increases her docility to man.
The Durande had never worked better at sea than on that day. ”

“ If an engine were necessary not only to propel a ship, but also to make her float—if, on the occasion of any accident she immediately went to the bottom with all on board—there would not, at the present day, be any such thing as steam navigation. ”

“ 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 [Pg 100] 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. ”

“ In the quarter of a century which elapsed between 1812, when the Comet first began to churn the waters of the Clyde, and 1837, steam navigation progressed steadily and surely. At first, content with plying along rivers and quiet bays, steamers by-and-by ventured out upon the open sea. We owe the regular establishment of deep-sea packets to the courage and enterprise of Mr. David Napier of Glasgow, "who," says Mr. Scott Russell, "has effected more for the improvement of steam navigation than any other man." ”

“ She was built to the order of the Liverpool and Australian Steam Navigation Co., the owners of the celebrated Great Britain. Her owners were of opinion that steamers relying entirely upon their engines, could not be worked so economically as vessels with auxiliary steam power, and sailing vessels trusting only to their sails could not be relied upon to make their passages with regularity and despatch, consequently they determined to combine the two motive powers and give their vessel the benefit of both. ”

“ I never contemplate the history of navigation of the ocean by steam, but it seems to illustrate to me in the most striking manner the slow steps by which a great movement advances for generations, for ages, from the first germ,—then, when the hour is come, the rapidity with which it rushes to a final consummation. Providence offered this great problem of navigating the ocean by steam to every civilized nation almost on the globe. ”

“ The importance of steam navigation has been still more recently ascertained. When it was first proposed, Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, said: "It is a pretty plan, but there is just one point overlooked: that the steam-engine requires a firm basis on which to work." Symington, the practical mechanic, put this theory to the test by his successful experiments, first on Dalswinton Lake, and then on the Forth and Clyde Canal. Fulton and Bell afterwards showed the power of steamboats in navigating the rivers of America and Britain. ”

“ Thus, whilst steam navigation was facilitating the means of intercourse over rivers and seas, and whilst railways and locomotive engines served to bring distant cities within a few hours' journey of each other, another source of power, infinitely more rapid in its action than steam, has been made to transmit intelligence from place to place, and from one country to another, with the speed of lightning. ”

“ The Americans have an idea that they are very far ahead of us in steam navigation, a great error which I could not persuade them of. In the first place, their machinery is not by any means equal to ours; in the next, they have no sea-going steam vessels, which after all is the great desideratum of steam navigation. Even in the number and tonnage of their mercantile steam vessels they are not equal to us, as I shall presently show, nor have they yet arrived to that security in steam navigation which we have. ”

“ Among the various ways in which the steam engine has ministered to the social progress of our race, none is more important and interesting than the aid it has afforded to navigation. Before it lent its giant powers to that art, locomotion over the waters of the deep was attended with a degree of danger and uncertainty, which seemed so necessary and so inevitable, that, as a common proverb, it became the type and representative of everything else which was precarious and perilous. ”

“ Some idea of the marvellously rapid growth of steam navigation may be gathered from the fact that in the year 1825, just ten years after the arrival of the first steamers on the Thames and Mersey, there were 44 steam vessels on the stocks at Liverpool of from 250 to 500 tons each ”

“ Improvement of the means of steam navigation.—The early steamers were moved by paddle-wheels, which offer special advantages for use in shallow water, but which are not so efficient as the screw propeller in the open sea. They require heavier and bulkier engines which must be placed in the best part of the ship, they waste power, and they show the effects of wear and tear more quickly. ”

“ IT will help us to appreciate the work of the men who first experimented with steam-driven ships if we recall the fact that James Watt, working at Soho, near Birmingham, England, invented the engine which used steam on both sides of the piston in 1782, and that it was for many years after that date an enormously heavy and cumbersome machine. From this fact we see the state of the mechanic arts in England at the end of the eighteenth century, when practical experiments in steam navigation were first begun. ”

“ How amply realized has been James Bell's prediction more than half a century ago, "I will venture to affirm that history does not afford an instance of such rapid improvement in commerce and civilization, as that which will be effected by steam vessels!"
Towards the close of the last century, a number of ingenious minds were in travail with the scheme of steam navigation. The Marquis de Jouffroy in France, and Fitch and Rumsey in America, were successful in experiments of its feasibility ”

“ It would seem, therefore, to be only a small step in inventive progress, after the discovery of the steam engine, to apply that motive power to turn the paddle-wheels which had been previously used; and now that we see the perfected invention, it may surprise those who are unacquainted with the difficulties which attend any new appliance, that Steam Navigation did not sooner become an accomplished fact. ”

“ Having taken on board all the stores that the Valorous carried, as well as a full supply of coal, the Alert and the Discovery started in company for the North. The advantages of steam navigation were made even more apparent as they proceeded, for the ships were able to steam through ice-encumbered water which would have been quite impassable for sailing vessels. Depending so much upon the wind, a sailing vessel is only able to make headway amongst heavy drifting floes by means of long hawsers, run out and made fast to a mass of ice and then slowly hauled in at the capstan. ”

“ To look down into the engine room from the big sky-light on the top deck is to have a glimpse into a world that to people not used to shipping is one of strange activity; a world where diminutive human ants are moving in a tropical atmosphere across narrow bridges, busy preparing this Brobdignagian apparatus for its first struggle with the forces of the wide Atlantic, which the Oceanic is to cross with the speed and certainty of an express train—the conquest of the mighty force of matter by the mighty force of mind.... ”

“ And, as in this instance, so has the effort been throughout our whole country, and upon the ocean, until we have attained, both upon the rivers and the high seas, the highest speed yet known, notwithstanding the important fact that steamship building is a new and not fully developed species of enterprise in this country. We have already seen how imperatively the spirit of the age and the genius of our people demand rapid steam mails by both land and sea, and a rapid conveyance of passengers ”

“ The promoters of the Great Eastern Steam Navigation Company were very sanguine that the Government would frequently employ their vessel for the conveyance of troops, of which they estimated she could carry ten thousand. The Government very wisely never risked so great a body of men in one vessel. ”

“ Even at the beginning of the present century, it seemed to be more probable that man would be able to navigate the air at will, than that he should be able, without wind or current, and in opposition to both, to propel and steer large ships over the waves; yet, within twenty years afterwards, Steam Navigation had ceased to be a wonder. ”

“ In the year 1851 a steamship company was promoted in London, under the title of the Eastern Steam Navigation Company, Limited, for the purpose of establishing a direct line of leviathan steamers between England and India, via the Cape of Good Hope. ”

“ The successful use of steam navigation on the ocean has been followed by the introduction of war steamers in great and increasing numbers into the navies of the principal maritime powers of the world. A due regard to our own safety and to an efficient protection to our large and increasing commerce demands a corresponding increase on our part. ”

“ Since then he has laid before the public another work, entitled,
“A Treatise on Navigation by Steam: comprising a History of the Steam Engine, and an Essay towards a System of the Naval Tactics peculiar to Steam Navigation, as applicable to Commerce and Maritime Warfare; including a comparison of its Advantages as related to other systems in the circumstances of speed, safety, and economy, but more particularly is that of The National Defence.” ”

“ But not only have the limits of practicable speed been enlarged, but a greater economy of fuel for the work done has been attained; the result being that ocean carriage is now cheaper than ever. The outcome of this will not cease with simply a greatly extended steam navigation, but appears destined ultimately to produce effects on the world at large comparable in range and magnitude with those that may be traced to the use of the steam engine itself since its first invention. ”

“ These little ships measure about 50 feet long, and about 15 feet wide; they are driven by direct-acting, compound, surface-condensing engines, which give to them a speed of about nine knots.
In certain parts of the world where the rivers are shallow, either at their banks or in mid-stream, steam navigation is only possible by means of “stern-wheelers.” Such instances occur on the West Coast of Africa, and also in America. In general idea, though not in detail, this method is a reversion to the antiquated ship already discussed in Hulls’ idea for a tow-boat. ”

“ Then there have recently been great improvements in the construction of engines; and I think it safe to say that what with changes in length, engines, and some other things, a ship of a given number of tons can be run for half the expense that was required twenty years ago. Steam navigation is now so economical that it is rapidly driving sailing vessels from the ocean. The number of sailing ships on long voyages is diminishing every year, and that of steamers is increasing."
"What is the greatest speed that steamers can make nowadays, with all these improvements?" Frank asked. ”

“ At first the wheels appear to have been turned by men, and there came a day when a double boat of Miller’s, worked by a couple of wheels with two men to turn each wheel, sailed with a Custom House boat, and the need of more efficient motive power to revolve the wheels became very marked. Then the idea of steam navigation was born, or re-born.
There was a gentleman named Taylor, living with Miller, as tutor to his sons, and he often took part in the experiments with the boats. It is said that Taylor suggested the use of steam to propel the vessel, and that Miller doubted its practicability. ”

“ We have no sympathy whatever with those who seem to rake in to the credit of their own country every discovery and invention they possibly or plausibly can. We did much towards the commencement of steam navigation, but we did not begin it. We pushed considerably in advance of other nations in the invention of apparatus by which boats might be propelled by steam ”

“ We now reach the period which brings us to practical steam navigation in Europe. In January, 1812, Henry Bell, of Helensburgh, Scotland, completed the construction of a small passenger steam vessel, the Comet, of thirty tons burden. She was only forty feet in length, with an engine of three-horse power. The circular which announced its regular trips is worth reprinting, as it is the first advertisement of the kind made in all Europe. It reads as follows:—
“Steam Passage Boat, the COMET, between Glasgow, Greenock, and Helensburgh for passengers only. ”

“ The application of steam to the purposes of navigation, is one of the greatest achievements of modern science and art. The great utility of this agent is particularly conspicuous in our vast country, where large rivers and bays and mighty lakes are numerous, and where an energetic people and an active commerce require a rapid intercommunication. Steamboats are but little used on the great oceans; as merchandise can there be more cheaply and safely transported in vessels propelled by sails. ”