The tendency of shipbuilders during the eighteenth century was to increase the length of vessels in proportion to the breadth of beam and diminish the depth of the hull and superstructures, above the water line, with improved sailing qualities. England's extensive trade with India and the far East was conducive to this development, as the "East Indiamen" were necessarily a combination of merchant vessel and battleship.

In the first half of the nineteenth century America rose to great commercial importance thanks to her fleets of fine sailing vessels. Speed rather than strength in their ships was the aim of American ship-builders, to gain which they built boats proportionately longer and narrower than ever constructed before for ocean traffic. The culminating type of wooden sailing ship was represented by the "Baltimore clippers," in which the length was five, and even six, times the beam, with light rigging and improved mechanical devices for handling it, whereby the amount of manual labor was greatly lessened. One of these ships, the Great Republic, built in 1853, was over three hundred feet long, and 3,400 tons register. She was a four-masted vessel, fitted with double topsails, with a spread of canvas about 4,500 square yards.

The modern descendant of the wooden clipper ship is the schooner with from four to six masts. Some of these vessels exceed the older boats in size and carrying capacity, if not in speed. Perhaps the largest schooner ever constructed is the Wyoming, which was completed at Bath, Maine, early in the year 1910. This vessel is 329 feet long and 50 feet broad. It has a carrying capacity of 6,000 tons. The construction of such a vessel at so recent a period suggests that the day of the sailing ship is by no means over notwithstanding that a full century has elapsed since the coming of the steamboat. Here, as so often elsewhere in the history of progress, it has happened that the full development of a type has not been reached until the ultimate doom of that type, except for special purposes, had been irrevocably sealed. Ever since the full development of the steamboat in the early decades of the nineteenth century, the sailing ship has seemed almost an anachronism; and yet, in point of fact, the steamship did not at once outrival its more primitive forerunner. Even in the matter of speed, the sailing ship more than held its own for a generation or so after the steamship had been placed in commission. In 1851 the American clipper Flying Cloud made 427 knots in twenty-four hours; and The Sovereign of the Seas bettered this by averaging over eighteen miles an hour for twenty-four consecutive hours. The Atlantic record for sailing vessels is usually said to have been made in 1862 by the clipper ship Dreadnought in a passage between Queenstown and New York, the time of which is stated as nine days and seventeen hours. It should be remarked, however, that the authenticity of this extraordinary performance has been challenged.

Be that as it may, it is certain that the speediest sailing ships, granted favorable conditions of wind and wave, more than surpassed the best efforts of the steamship until about the closing decades of the nineteenth century. But of course long before this the steamship had proved its supremacy under all ordinary conditions. Even though sailing ships continued to be constructed in large numbers, their picturesque rigging became less and less a feature in all navigable waters, and the belching funnel of the steamship had become a characteristic substitute as typifying the sea-going vessel.

The story of the development of this new queen of the waters must now demand our attention. It begins with the futile efforts of several more or less visionary enthusiasts who were contemporaries of James Watt, and who thought they saw great possibilities in the steam engine as a motive power to take the place of oars and sails for the propulsion of ships.

EARLY ATTEMPTS TO INVENT A STEAMBOAT

Among the first of these was an American named John Fitch. Judged by the practical results of his efforts, he was not a highly successful inventor; as a prophet, however, and as an experimenter whose efforts fell just short of attainment, he deserves a conspicuous place in the history of an epoch-making discovery. Yet his prophecy was based on his failures. From 1780, for twenty years he strove to perfect a steamboat. His efforts did not carry him far beyond the experimental stage. But his courage and enthusiasm never waned. "Whether I bring the steamboat to perfection or not," he declared, "it will some time in the future be the mode of crossing the Atlantic for packets and armed vessels."

At that very time Benjamin Franklin said this would never be. But twenty years later Fulton's Clermont paddled up the Hudson River from New York to Albany and opened the era that saw Fitch's prophecy fulfilled. This was in 1807—a year that must stand as the most momentous in maritime history. In that year the little Clermont steamed slowly from New York to Albany, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles in thirty-two hours, unaided by sails or oars, and propelled entirely by steam-power. A sail-boat could cover the distance in the same number of hours; a modern torpedo boat in one-sixth the time. Yet no performance of any boat, before or since, had such far-reaching effects upon the progress of the world.

When Fulton turned his attention from his favorite theme—the invention of a submarine boat—and took up the question of perfecting a boat propelled by steam, he did not find himself the first or the only inventor in the field. For a hundred years, in round numbers, men had been wrestling with the question of applying steam pressure to boat propulsion. All manner of more or less ingenious devices had been conceived, most of them having a germ of success in the principles involved, but all of them being failures in actual practice.

Among the most promising of these first steamboats were those in which the propeller, or the paddle-wheel, was tried; but neither of these methods was looked upon favorably at first. Less promising was one in which the motive power was a jet of water pumped through a submerged tube—a principle that still periodically fascinates certain modern inventors.

But the boats that seemed to have come nearer attaining practical success for the moment were those in which several sets of oars worked by steam were placed vertically on each side of the hull, the machinery so arranged that the oars were dipped into the water and drawn sternward by one motion of the machinery, raised and carried toward the bow by the opposite motion. In some of these boats it was planned to have four sets of oars, two sets on each side, which were to work alternately, so that while one set was traveling forward through the air, its mate would be paddling through the water, thus insuring a continuous forward impulse. But the machinery for these boats proved to be too cumbersome and complicated for practical results, and this idea was finally abandoned. The jet of water did not prove any more successful, and but two other methods were available—the propeller and the paddle-wheel.

Both of these methods of utilizing the power of moving water had been familiar in the form of the Archimedian screw and the commonplace overshot or undershot mill-wheel. In these examples, of course, the force of the water was used to move machinery, reversing the action of the paddle-wheel of the boat. And yet the principles were identical. Obviously if the conditions were reversed, and the undershot mill-wheel, for example, forced against the water with corresponding power, the propulsive effect might be great enough—since action and reaction are equal—to move a boat of considerable size. But curiously enough, at the time when Fulton began his experiments there was a wave of general belief that when this principle was applied to boats it would fail. The reason for this lay in the fact that several such boats had been built from time to time, and all had failed. The fault, of course, lay in some other place than in their paddle wheels; but for the time being the wheel, and not the machinery, was shouldered with the blame.

Just a hundred years before Fulton finally produced his practical paddle-wheel steamboat, a prototype was built by the Spaniard, Blasco de Gary. In 1707, this inventor constructed a model paddle-wheel steamboat, and tried it upon the river Fulda. But this model boat failed to work, and the experiment was soon forgotten.

Twenty-five years later Jonathan Hulls of England patented a marine engine which he proposed to use in a boat which was to be propelled by a stern wheel. His idea was to use his boats as tug- or tow-boats, and to equip the larger vessels themselves with steam. But his engines were defective and his boats did not achieve commercial success.

During the time of the American Revolution, a French inventor, the Marquis de Jouffroy, made several interesting experiments with steam-propelled boats, using the principle of the paddle which was dipped and raised alternately as referred to a few pages back. His boats made several public trials, one of them ascending the Seine against the current; but nevertheless, the French government refused to grant the inventor a patent. Presumably, therefore, the boat was not considered a practical success in official circles; and this view is tacitly conceded by the fact that no more boats of its type were constructed. Had they been really practical steamboats it is a fair presumption that others would have been constructed and put into operation, regardless of patents. Nevertheless, in France to-day, the Marquis de Jouffroy is often referred to as the father of steam navigation.

The idea of propelling a boat by means of a jet of water pumped out at the stern by steam pumps was given a practical test in 1784, by James Rumsey. His boat made a trial trip on the Potomac River in September of that year, General Washington and other army officers being present on this occasion. The boat was able to make fairly good progress through the water, and seemed so promising that a company was formed by capitalists known as the Rumsey Society, for promoting the idea and building more boats. Rumsey was sent to England where he undertook the construction of another boat, meanwhile taking out patents in Great Britain, France, and Holland. Before his boat was completed, however, he died suddenly, and the Rumsey Society passed out of existence shortly afterwards.

An even closer approach to practical success was made in Scotland by James Symington, who in 1788, in association with two other Scotchmen, Miller and Taylor, constructed a boat consisting of two hulls, with a paddle-wheel between them worked by a steam-engine. This boat worked so well that in 1801, Lord Dundas engaged Symington to build a smaller boat to be used for towing on the Caledonian Canal. This boat, called the Charlotte Dundas, completed in 1802, is said to have been capable of towing a vessel of one hundred and forty tons "nearly four miles an hour." But in doing this the resulting "wash" so threatened the banks of the canal that the vessel was laid up and finally rotted and fell to pieces.

By many impartial judges this boat is considered the first practical steamboat, and its failure to establish its claim due to the force of circumstances rather than to any inherent defects. Symington was too poor to pursue his work independently, and was deterred by the attitude of James Watt, who "predicted the failure of his engine, and threatened him with legal penalties if it succeeded." And when at last he received an order for eight smaller vessels from the Duke of Bridgewater, his patron died before the details of the agreement had been completed. So that while he failed in accomplishing what was done by Fulton a few years later, it is certain that, as Woodcraft says, "He combined for the first time those improvements which constitute the present system of steam navigation."

Some of Symington's engines have been preserved, and one of them is now in the Patent Office Museum in London. Since the beginning of practical steam navigation this engine has been tested several times, the result showing that Woodcraft's estimate is not overdrawn.

While Symington was thus perfecting a paddle-boat, an American, Col. John Stevens of Hoboken, New Jersey, was on the verge of accomplishing the same end with a screw-propeller boat—a form of steamship that did not come into use until some forty years later.

Stevens also invented what he called a "rotary engine" which was really an engine constructed on the same principle as the modern turbine engine. It was a small affair which he placed in a skiff, and used for turning the screw-propeller of a boat which was able to travel at a rate of three or four miles an hour on the North River, during the fall of 1802. But Stevens found so much difficulty in packing the blades of this engine without causing too much friction that he finally abandoned it for the more common type of reciprocating engine. But if this little steamboat had its defects, it nevertheless contained the germs of two great features of steam navigation—the screw propeller and the turbine engine, the advantage of the first of which was not recognized for nearly half a century, and the other not until almost a full century later.

In 1804 Stevens produced another propeller steamboat, this one using the ordinary type of reciprocating engine, and being notable for having twin screws of a pattern practically identical with the screws now in use. This boat was able to steam at a rate of four miles an hour on many occasions, and at times almost double this rate, according to some observers. The engines of this boat are still in existence, and on several occasions since 1804 have been placed in hulls corresponding as nearly as possible to the original, and have demonstrated that they could force the boat through the water at six or eight miles an hour. These engines in a modern hull were exhibited at the Columbian Exposition at Chicago, in 1893. They supply irrefutable evidence that the practical steamboat had been invented at least three years before Fulton's historic voyage in 1807. Yet no one questions that it was Fulton's, not Stevens', invention that inaugurated steam navigation.

Just why this was so is a little difficult to comprehend at this time, unless it was that Stevens' boat was such a small affair that it did not attract the attention it deserved, as did Fulton's larger boat. And yet we should not be guided too much by retrospective judgment. The significant fact remains that Stevens himself did not have entire confidence in his boat, or in the principle of his screw propeller, as is shown by the fact that three years later, while Fulton was building the Clermont, Stevens was also constructing a steamboat, not along the lines of his previous inventions, but as a paddle-wheel boat. This leaves little room for doubt that Stevens had not full confidence in the propeller; and when an inventor himself mistrusts his own device, there is little likelihood that anyone else will supply the necessary confidence. This may account for the fact that Stevens found difficulty in securing financial backing for his enterprise; and when such backing was found it was for the construction of the paddle-wheel boat, which was finished a few months after Fulton's boat had solved the problem of steam navigation.

FULTON AND THE CLERMONT

As we shall see in another place, Fulton was no novice in the construction of peculiar boats at this time. He had built experimental boats both at home and abroad, was familiar with the principle of the screw and the paddle-wheel, and had come to have absolute confidence in the possibility of propelling boats at a good rate of speed by the use of steam. When he began his now famous Clermont, in the spring of 1807, it was not as an experimental skiff, but as a boat of one hundred and fifty tons burden—half again the size of the boats in which Columbus had discovered America—to be placed in commission between Albany and New York city. By August, this boat was completed, and the engines in place, and, under her own steam, the new boat was moved from the Jersey shipyard where she was constructed, and tied up at a New York dock. On August 7th, she started on her maiden trip up the Hudson. To the astonishment of practically every one of the persons in the great throng that had gathered along the shores, she left her dock in due course, and with wind and tide against her, steamed up the river at the rate of about five miles an hour. At this speed she covered the entire distance between New York and Albany, settling forever the question of the practicability of steam navigation.

The impression this fire-belching monster made upon the sleepy inhabitants as it passed along the river can be readily imagined. An eye-witness account of this first passage of the Clermont has been given by an inhabitant at the half-way point near Poughkeepsie.

"It was the early autumn in 1807," he wrote, "that a knot of villagers was gathered on the high bluff just opposite Poughkeepsie, on the west bank of the Hudson, attracted by the appearance of a strange, dark-looking craft which was slowly making its way up the river. Some imagined it to be a sea-monster, while others did not hesitate to express their belief that it was a sign of the approaching Judgment. What seemed strange in the vessel was the substitution of lofty and straight black smoke-pipes, rising from the deck, instead of the gracefully tapered masts that commonly stood on the vessels navigating the stream; and, in place of spars and rigging, the curious play of the working-beam and pistons, and the slow turning and splashing of the huge, naked paddle-wheels, met the astonished gaze. The dense clouds of smoke as they rose wave upon wave, added still more to the wonderment of the rustics.

"This strange looking craft was the Clermont, on her trial trip to Albany. On her return-trip, the curiosity she excited was scarcely less intense—the whole country talked of nothing but the sea-monster, belching fire and smoke. The fishermen became terrified and rowed homewards, and they saw nothing but destruction devastating their fishing grounds; whilst the wreaths of black vapor, and rushing noise of the paddle-wheels, foaming with the stirred-up water, produced great excitement among the boatmen."

While acknowledging fully Fulton's right to the claim of being "the father of steam navigation," as he has been called, there is no evidence to show that he introduced any new principle or discovery in his application of steam to the Clermont. The boiler, engine, paddle-wheel—every part of the boat had been known for years. Yet this does not detract from the glory of Fulton, who first combined this scattered knowledge in a practical way, and demonstrated the practicality beyond question.

SEA-GOING STEAMSHIPS

The first war steamer and ocean steamer ever attempted was built by Fulton, in 1813. It was called the Demolgos, and was not a practical success, and made no attempts to take protracted ocean voyages. The first steamship to cross was the Savannah in 1819. She made the voyage from Savannah to Liverpool in twenty-five days, using her paddle-wheels part of the time, but at other times depending entirely upon her sails. She was a boat of three hundred and fifty tons, and her paddle-wheels were arranged so that they could be hauled in upon the deck and stowed away in bad weather.

Following the Savannah several similar combination sailing and steam-propelled boats were constructed, the navigators coming to have more and more faith in the possibilities of steam, so that less sail was carried. These vessels continued to reduce the time of the passage between Europe and America, until the voyage had been made in about seventeen days. Then, in 1838, two vessels, the Sirius and the Great Western, for the first time using steam alone as motive power, made record voyages, the Great Western crossing in twelve days, seven and a half hours. This was considered remarkable time—an average speed of over two hundred miles a day. Something like four hundred and fifty tons of coal were consumed on the voyage, which impressed many as a great extravagance of fuel. Some of the ocean liners at present consume more than twice this amount in a single day.

On July 4, 1840, the Britannia, the first steamer of the Cunard Line, started on its maiden voyage from Liverpool to Boston. The voyage was made in fourteen days, among the passengers being Samuel Cunard, a Quaker of Halifax, who was the founder of the enterprise. The population of Boston went mad on the arrival of this boat; streets and buildings were decorated, and the day was given over to the regular holiday amusements. Cunard received upward of eighteen hundred invitations to dinner that evening.

The year 1840, then, may be considered as one of the vital years in the progress of steam navigation. Since that time no year has passed without seeing some important addition and improvement made in the conquest of the ocean, either in size, shape, or speed of the "greyhounds."

SHIPS BUILT OF IRON AND STEEL

Even before the introduction of steam as a motive power for boats shipbuilders had been casting about for some satisfactory substitute for wood in the construction of vessels. One reason for this was that suitable wood was becoming scarce and very expensive. But also there was a limit to the size that a wooden vessel might be built with safety. A wooden boat more than three hundred feet long cannot be constructed without having dangerous structural weakness.

Naturally the idea that the only suitable material for boat-building was something lighter than water,—something that would float—which had been handed down traditionally for thousands of years, could not be overcome in a moment. And surely such a heavy substance as iron would not be likely to suggest itself to the average ship-builder. But at the beginning of the nineteenth century rapid strides were being made in theoretical, as well as applied science, and the idea of using metal in place of wood for shipbuilding began to take practical form.

Richard Trevithick, whose remarkable experiments in locomotive building have been noted in another chapter, had planned an iron ship as early as 1809. He did not actually construct a vessel, but he made detailed plans of one—not merely a boat with an iron hull, but with decks, beams, masts, yards, and spars made of the same material. It was nearly ten years after Trevithick drew his plans, however, before the first iron ship was constructed. Then Thomas Wilson of Glasgow built a vessel on practically the same lines suggested by Trevithick.

This vessel, finished in 1818, and called the Vulcan, was the pioneer of all iron boats. For at least sixty years it remained in active service. Indeed, for aught that is known to the contrary, this first iron boat may be still in use in some capacity.

One of the most surprising and interesting things to shipbuilders about the Vulcan, and the boats that were constructed after her, was the fact that they were actually lighter in proportion to their carrying capacity than ships of corresponding size built of wood. In wooden cargo ships the weight of the hull and fittings varies from 35 to 45 per cent. of the total displacement, while iron vessels vary from 25 to 30 per cent. This was a vital point in favor of the iron vessel, and one that appealed directly to practical builders. But the public at large looked askance at the new vessels. To "sink like a stone" was proverbial; and everyone knows that iron sinks quite as readily as stone.

But very soon a convincing demonstration of the strength of iron vessels brought them into favor. A great storm, sweeping along the coast of Great Britain in 1835, drove many vessels on shore, among them an iron steamboat just making her maiden voyage. The wooden vessels without exception were wrecked, most of them destroyed, but the iron vessel, although subjected to the same conditions, escaped without injury, thanks to the material and method of her construction.

From that time the position of the iron steamship was assured. And whereas sea voyagers had formerly looked askance at iron passenger boats they now began to distrust those built of wood. By the middle of the century, iron shipbuilding was at its height, and in the decade immediately following, the Great Eastern was finished—possibly the largest and most remarkable structure ever built of iron, on land or sea. In recent years larger ships have been constructed, but these ships are made of steel.

The Great Eastern marked an epoch in shipbuilding. In size she was a generation ahead of her time, but the innovations in the method of her construction gave the cue to modern revolutionary shipbuilding methods. Sir George C. V. Holmes gives the following account of the great ship:

"She was originally intended by the famous engineer, Mr. I. K. Brunel, to trade between England and the East. She was designed to make the voyage to Australia without calling anywhere en route to coal, a feat which, in the then state of steam-engine economy, no other vessel could accomplish. It was supposed that this advantage, coupled with the high speed expected from her great length, would secure for her the command of the enormous cargoes which would be necessary to fill her. Mr. Brunel communicated his idea that such a vessel should be constructed for the trade to the East to the famous engineer and shipbuilder, the late Mr. John Scott Russell, F.R.S., and he further persuaded his clients, the directors of the Eastern Steam Navigation Company, of the soundness of his views, for they resolved that the projected vessel should be built for their company, and entrusted the contract for its execution to the firm of John Scott Russell & Co., of Millwall.

"Mr. Scott Russell and Mr. Brunel were, between them, entitled to the credit of the design, which, on account of the exceptional size of the ship, presented special difficulties, and involved a total departure from ordinary practice.

"Mr. Scott Russell had systematically, in his own previous practice, constructed iron ships with cellular bottoms, but the cells had only five sides, the uppermost side on the inside being uncovered. Over a large portion, however, of the bottom of the Great Eastern the cells were completed by the addition of an inner bottom, which added greatly both to the strength and to the safety of the ship. It was also Mr. Brunel's idea that the great ship should be propelled by both paddles and screw. Mr. Scott Russell was responsible for the lines and dimensions, and also for the longitudinal system of framing, with its numerous complete and partial transverse and longitudinal bulkheads.

"The following are some of the principal dimensions and other data of the Great Eastern:

"The accommodation for passengers was on an unprecedented scale. There were no less than five saloons on the upper, and as many on the lower deck, the aggregate length of the principal apartments being 400 feet. There was accommodation for 800 first-class, 2,000 second-class, and 1,200 third-class passengers, and the crew numbered 400. The upper deck, which was of a continuous iron-plated and cellular structure, ran flush from stem to stern, and was twenty feet wide on each side of the hatchways; thus two spacious promenades were provided, each over a furlong in length. The capacity for coal and cargo was 18,000 tons.

"The attempts to launch this vessel were most disastrous, and cost no less than £120,000, an expense which ruined the company. The original company was wound up, and the great ship sold for £160,000 to a new company, and was completed in the year 1859. The new company very unwisely determined to put her on the American station, for which she was in no way suited. During her preliminary trip the pilot reported that she made a speed of fully 14 knots at two-thirds of full pressure, but the highest rate of speed which she attained on this occasion was 15 knots, and on her first journey across the Atlantic the average speed was nearly 14 knots, the greatest distance run in a day having been 333 nautical miles. The great value of the system adopted in her construction was proved by an accident which occurred during one of her Transatlantic voyages. She ran against a pointed rock, but the voyage was continued without hindrance. It was afterwards found that holes of the combined length of over 100 feet had been torn in her outer bottom; but, thanks to the inner water-tight skin, no water was admitted."

Between the years 1860 and 1870 great improvements were made in marine engines, and screw-steamers very generally replaced side-wheel boats for ocean traffic. The improvements in the engines consisted largely in the use of higher pressures, surface condensation, and compounding of the cylinders, which resulted in a saving of about half the amount of fuel over engines of the older type. As a result steamers were able to compete successfully with the sailing ships, even as freighters for long voyages, such as those between Europe and Australia.

During the reactive period in France immediately following the Franco-Prussian war, when there was great activity in shipbuilding, the use of mild steel plates in place of wrought iron was tried. The superiority of this material over iron was quickly demonstrated, and as the cost of steel was constantly lessening, thanks to the newly discovered methods of production, steel practically replaced iron in ship construction after this time.

It was during this same period that a new type of passenger steamer was produced—the "ocean greyhound." The first of these was the Oceanic, built by the White Star Company in 1871. This ship was remarkable in many ways. Her length, four hundred and twenty feet, was more than ten times her beam; iron railings were substituted for bulwarks; and the passenger quarters were shifted from the position near the stern to the middle of the vessel. All these changes proved to be distinct improvements, and the Oceanic became at once the most popular, as well as the fastest ocean liner.

Like all the other boats of the seventies and early eighties, the Oceanic was a single-screw vessel. The advantage of double propellers in case of accident had long been recognized, but hitherto twin-screws had not proved as efficient as a single screw in developing speed. But in 1888 the City of Paris (now the Philadelphia) a twin-screw boat, began making new speed records, and the following year her sister ship, the New York, and the new Majestic and Teutonic, entering into the ocean-record contests, cut the time of the passage between Europe and America to less than six days.

The advantages of the double-screw over the single are so many and so manifest as to leave no question as to their superiority. The disabling of the shaft or screw of the single-screw steamer, or the derangement of her rudder renders the vessel helpless. Not so the twin-screw ship; for on such ships the screws can be used for steering as well as propelling. And it has happened many times that twin-screw ships have crossed the ocean with the steering gear disabled, or with one screw entirely out of commission.

THE TRIUMPH OF THE TURBINE

In recent years the greatest revolutionary step in steamship construction has been the invention and development of the turbine engine, the mechanism of which has been described elsewhere. Since the day of the little Turbinia, whose speed astonished the nautical world, the limit for size and speed of ships has again been materially advanced, and no thinking person will venture to predict restricting limits without a modifying question mark.

At the beginning of the twentieth century a keen rivalry had developed between England and the Continent for supremacy in transatlantic traffic, America having dropped out of the race. The Germans in particular had produced fast boats, such as the Deutschland and Kaiser Wilhelm II, which for several years held the ocean record for speed. But meanwhile the turbine engine was being perfected in England, the land of its invention, and presently turbine "greyhounds" began crossing the ocean and menacing the records held by the boats equipped with the older type of engine.

The reciprocating marine engine, however, had been steadily improved, until it was a marvel in efficiency. Quadruple expansion engines driving twin-screws of a size and shape known to develop the greatest efficiency, for several years offered invincible competition to the new type of engine. There were new conditions to be met, new difficulties to be overcome.

A decisive test of the merits of the turbine engine was given in 1905, when the Cunard Company built two vessels, the Caronia and Carmania, of exactly the same size and shape, the Caronia having the highest type of quadruple expansion reciprocating engines, while the Carmania was equipped with turbine engines. Here was a fair test of efficiency between the two types. And the turbine boat proved herself the better of the two by developing more than a knot greater speed per hour.

Still the Carmania offered no serious competition in speed to several of the German flyers. But in 1908 two more turbine ships, the Lusitania and Mauretania began making regular transatlantic voyages, and quickly distanced all competitors.

In size as well as in speed these sister ships mark an epoch in navigation. Turbine engines take the place of the usual reciprocating type, acting on four propellers for going ahead, and two separate propellers for going astern. These engines develop 68,000 horse-power. Stated in this way these figures convey little idea of the power developed. But when we say that it would take a line of horses one hundred and twenty miles long hitched tandem to develop the power generated in the compact space of the Mauretania's engine room, some idea of the power is gained.

It is not the matter of power, size, or speed alone that makes the twentieth century passenger steamer so completely outclass her predecessors. It is really the matter of comfort and safety afforded the ocean travelers. Safety against sinking from injury to the hull was provided for by the introduction of watertight compartments half a century ago, as we have seen; and the size of the Great Eastern has been surpassed in only a few instances. But it is since the beginning of the present century that two revolutionary safety devices have been perfected—wireless telegraphy and the submarine signaling apparatus. The wireless apparatus has been described in another chapter, and as it is used almost as much on land as at sea, cannot be considered as solely a nautical appliance. But the submarine signaling device, which is dependent upon water for transmission, is essentially a nautical mechanism.

SUBMARINE SIGNALING

It is difficult for the average landsman to appreciate that the one thing most dreaded by mariners is fog. Dark and boisterous nights which frighten the distressed landsman have no terrors for the sailor. Given an open sea-way he knows that he can ride out any gale that blows. It is the foggy night that fills him with apprehension.

In perfectly still weather the sound of the fog horn carries far enough, and indicates location well enough so that two ships approaching each other, or a ship approaching a bell buoy, can detect its location and avoid danger. But this is under favorable conditions; and unfortunately such conditions do not always prevail. And if there is a wind stirring or the sea running high atmospheric sounds cannot be depended upon. A fog whistle whose sound ought to carry several miles under ordinary conditions, may not be heard more than a ship's length away. And scores of accidents, such as collisions between ships, have happened in fogs, when both vessels were sounding their fog whistles at regular intervals.

When wireless telegraphy was perfected sufficiently to be of practical use, great hopes were entertained that this discovery could be used to give warning and prevent accidents to fog-bound vessels. But experience has shown that its usefulness is confined largely to that of calling for help after the accident, rather than in preventing it. Thus in 1908 when the wireless operator on board the steamer Republic flashed his message broadcast telling ships and shore-stations for hundreds of miles around that his vessel had been run down in a fog and was sinking, he could only give the vessels that hurried to the Republic's aid an approximate idea of where they could find her. The use of another electric appliance, of even more recent invention than the wireless telegraph, was necessary for locating the exact position of the stricken ship. This was the submarine signaling device, which utilizes water instead of air as a medium for transmitting sound.

Benjamin Franklin pointed out more than a century ago that water carries sound farther and faster than air, and carries it with greater constancy. Density, temperature, and motion of the atmosphere act upon aerial sound waves to reflect and refract them in varying degrees; but these waves are not affected when water is the medium through which they are passing. The knowledge of these facts was turned to little practical account until the closing years of the last century when Arthur J. Mundy of Boston, and a little later Prof. Elisha Gray of Chicago, began experiments together that resulted finally in a practical submarine signaling apparatus which is now installed as a system on boats and buoys in dangerous places along the coasts, particularly near the great highways of ocean travel.

The principle upon which this system is based is simply that of sound waves transmitted through the water and detected at a distance by a submerged electrical transmitter. The sound transmitted is usually that of a submerged bell. It is possible for a person whose head is submerged to hear the ringing of such a bell distinctly for a long distance; but of course for practical purposes such submergence is out of the question. The receiving apparatus of the Mundy-Gray signaling device offers a substitute in the form of a submerged "artificial ear"—an electrical transmitter, connected with a telephone receiver.

In the early experiments a small hollow brass ball filled with water and containing a special form of electrical transmitter was lowered over the side of a ship and connected by insulated wires to the receiver of a telephone in the pilot house. The sound of a submerged bell could be heard in this manner at a distance of ten or twelve miles. The location of the bell could be determined by having two such brass balls, one on each side of the hull of the vessel but not submerged to a depth below that of the hull, so that the ship itself acts as a screen in obstructing the sound waves coming from the bell. By listening alternately to the sounds of the bell transmitted through these two submerged balls it was found that the ball on the side of the ship toward the bell gave a distinctly louder sound. By turning the ship so that the sounds were of equal intensity the direction of the bell could be determined as either directly ahead or astern; and by using the compass the exact location could be determined.

But such brass-ball transmitters can be used only when the vessel is moving at a rate not exceeding three miles an hour. They are, therefore, of little value for ocean liners whose reduced speed far exceeds this. But the inventors discovered presently that by using the inside of the outer steel skin of the ship's hull below the water line as one side of the brass ball, the transmitter would work equally well. Indeed, with added improvements, this hollow metal device fastened to the inside of the hull on each side, with connecting wires leading to the pilot house, in its perfected form will pick up the sound of the submerged bell equally well at any speed, regardless of calm or storm.

The chief defect of this arrangement was that the sound of the pulsations of the engines of the ship were also heard, and interfered seriously with the detection of the sound of the bell. But presently a receiving device was perfected which ignored all sounds but those of the bell, thus giving the mariner a means of protection against accidents that could be depended upon absolutely at all times regardless of speed or weather conditions.

When this stage of perfection of the signaling device was reached the various governments began installing the instruments on buoys, lighthouse sites, and light-ships, using various mechanical devices for ringing the bells, and timing the strokes so that the mariners could tell by the intervals just what bell he was in touch with, as he knows each lighthouse by the intervals between the Hashes of its lights. A further development in the signaling device was to equip ships with submerged bells, as well as with the receiving apparatus. In this way two ships could communicate with each other, or with a shore receiving station, by using the Morse telegraph code, just as in the case of telegraphy.

The maximum distance at which such communications may be detected is about fifteen miles, and the approximate distance from the bell can be gauged from the clearness of the sound heard in the telephone receiver. At the distance of a quarter of a mile the sound of the bell is so loud that it is painful to the listener if the receiver is held against the ear, while at ten or twelve miles the sound is scarcely audible.

Probably the most dramatic rescue at sea in recent years was that of the passengers and crew of the steamer Republic, referred to a few pages back. When her wireless messages of distress were received a score of vessels went groping in the fog to her assistance, while the entire civilized world waited in breathless expectancy. Most of the rescuing vessels, although constantly in communication with the stricken ship, were unable to locate her. But the successful vessel finally got in touch with the Republic's submarine signaling apparatus, and aided by this located the vessel and rescued the crew and passengers.

This is only one instance of the practical application of the submarine signaling apparatus. But its use is not confined to the larger boats. The apparatus can be made so small that even boats the size of a fishing dory may be equipped at least with the sounding device, and thus protected.

On the Newfoundland fishing banks one of the chief causes of loss of life is the running down of the fishing boats in the fog by passing steamers, and also the loss of the dories of the fishermen who are unable to find their way back to their vessels. Many of these fishing vessels now supply each of the attending dories with a submarine bell which weighs about forty pounds and is run by clockwork. When caught in the fog the fisherman hangs this bell over the side of his dory and thus warns approaching steamers of his position, at the same time affording his own vessel a guide for finding him and picking him up. In this manner the appalling loss of life in the fogs on the fishing banks has been greatly lessened. Thus the submarine signaling device gives aid to the smaller craft as well as the larger vessels.

For the moment this is the last important safety device that has been invented to help lessen the perils of sea voyages. Indeed the perils and discomforts of ocean voyages are now largely reminiscent, thanks to the rapid succession of scientific discoveries and their practical application during the last half century. The size of modern vessels minimizes rolling and pitching. Turbine engines practically eliminate engine vibrations. The danger from fires was practically eliminated by the introduction of iron and steel as building material; the danger of sinking after collisions is now guarded against by the division of the ship's hull into water-tight compartments; sensitive instruments as used at present warn the mariner of the presence of ice-bergs; wireless telegraphy affords a means of calling aid in case of disabled machinery and giving the ship's location in a general way; while the submarine signal makes known the exact location of the stricken vessel in foggy weather.

In a trifle over half a century the time of crossing the Atlantic has been reduced by more than one-half. In 1856 the Persia crossed the ocean between Queenstown and New York in nine days, one hour, and forty-five minutes, making a new record. In 1909 the Mauretania covered the same distance in four days, ten hours, and fifty-one minutes. In March, 1910, the same vessel completed a passage over the longer winter course, a distance of 2,889 knots, in four days, fifteen hours, and twenty-nine minutes, reducing the previous record by twenty-nine minutes.

When the Lusitania and Mauretania were completed many short-sighted persons predicted that these vessels would never be surpassed in size or speed. As if to refute such predictions, however, the White Star Company at once began constructing two vessels, the Olympic and Titanic, each with a displacement of one-fourth more than the great Cunarders, and of overshadowing proportions in everything save the matter of speed. Against the Mauretania's average twenty-six knot speed the new boats are designed to make only twenty-one.

These new boats are eight hundred and ninety feet in length, as against the Lusitania's seven hundred and ninety. They are ninety-two feet in beam, and sixty-two feet in molded depth. The roof of the pilot house is seventy feet above the water. The maximum draft is thirty-seven and a half feet and the displacement sixty thousand tons.

They resemble the Great Eastern in that they have two systems of engines. Two reciprocating engines drive the two outer of the three screws, and the exhaust from these engines is utilized in a low-pressure turbine engine, driving the center propeller.

LIQUID FUEL

Another step that has been taken to increase the efficiency of the steam engine on ships, is the adoption of liquid fuel in place of coal for making steam. For years the advantages of this form of fuel have been recognized, the Russians having brought its use to a high state of perfection, both in boats and locomotives. Practically all the steamers on the Black and Caspian seas, as well as on such rivers as the Volga, burn oil exclusively. And early in 1910 the British Navy decided to substitute oil for coal on all its vessels.

The advantages claimed for oil over coal as fuel are many. It is smokeless, produces more heat than coal, occupies less space for storage, can be loaded more quickly and easily, is cleaner, and reduces the engine-room force to one-fourth or one-third the number of men required when coal is used. Incidentally it reduces the difficult physical task of stoking to one relatively pleasant and easy. It gives a steadier fire, does not foul the boilers, and does away with cumbersome ashes and clinkers.

Its disadvantage lies in the danger from fire. An inflammable liquid carried in a ship's hold is obviously more dangerous than a corresponding quantity of relatively incombustible coal. Yet the obvious advantages of this form of fuel have been so compelling that it is now coming into use on all classes of war vessels, and seems likely to supplant coal entirely on some types of boats, such as the torpedo destroyers. Moreover, the experience of the Russian boats on the Black and Caspian seas seems to indicate that the dangers from the use of oil as a fuel when properly handled have been greatly exaggerated, and passenger and freight steamers all over the world are gradually adopting it.

Some tests were made by the Navy Department of the United States in 1909–1910 using a vessel which was formerly a coal-burning boat. In these tests it was found that the steaming radius was greatly increased, the firing force reduced, and fuel taken into the ship in about one-fourth the time it takes to coal. It was possible to get up steam in any boiler, or set of boilers, much more quickly than with coal.

Of course where oil is used for fuel some special form of burner is necessary. Many types have been tried, but in the most effective the oil is atomized by the use of steam spray, or air blast, it being impossible to get proper combustion of the oil except when used in minutely divided particles. Used in this manner a uniform temperature can be maintained easily, or may be increased or decreased very quickly.

As used at present liquid fuel simply substitutes coal for heating the ordinary type of boiler. But there seems every reason to believe that in the near future some type of internal combustion engine will be perfected that will use the crude, cheap oil, as the finer and lighter oils are used in motors to-day. When this occurs the space-consuming boilers and furnaces used in ships at present will be replaced by compact machinery, quite as efficient, but occupying only a fraction of the space. Nor need we expect that the invention of some such type of engine will be long delayed, if we may judge by the rapid strides made in perfecting other internal combustion engines during the past few years.

III
SUBMARINE VESSELS

THE development of submarine vessels has been one of the slowest in the history of modern inventions. Submarine boats, using submarine torpedoes, were able to destroy ships a hundred years ago; and a little less than half a century ago naval vessels were destroyed in actual warfare by these boats. But curiously enough no vessel has ever been destroyed in actual warfare by a submarine boat since that time. Yet these boats are essentially war-vessels, and, with the exception of boats of the Lake type, of no use whatever for commercial purposes.

Perhaps the explanation for this tardy development lies in the fact that until recent years naval men have not looked with favor upon this style of fighting craft. In Admiral Porter's book, written in 1878, he makes the statement that one of the reasons why they did not show more enthusiasm about the submarine made by Robert Fulton early in the nineteenth century, was that such boats "menaced the position of the naval men, whose calling would be gone did the little submarine boat supplant the battle-ship." We need not, however, depend upon this statement, made as it was three-quarters of a century after the demonstrations by Fulton, for there are many similar statements made at the time to be had at first hand. Thus Admiral Earl St. Vincent, when opposing the views of William Pitt, who had become enthusiastic over the possibilities of Fulton's submarines, is on record as having opposed such craft on the ground that by encouraging such development "he was laying the foundation which would do away with the navy." In 1802, M. St. Aubin wrote in this connection, "What will become of the navies, and where will sailors be found to man ships of war, when it is a physical certainty that they may at any time be blown into the air by diving boats, against which no human foresight can guard them?"

Such opposition has undoubtedly tended to retard the progress of submarine navigation; but be the cause what it may, it has made slow and laborious work of it; and we are only now approaching a solution of the question that seemed almost within grasp a hundred years ago—before the days of steam or electricity.

THE FIRST SUBMARINE

As early as the sixteenth century the possibilities of submarine navigation was the dream of the mariner, and tentative attempts at submarine boats are said to have been made even at an earlier period than this; but the first practical submarine boat capable of navigation entirely submerged for any length of time was made by David Bushnell, of Westbrook (then Saybrook), Maine, U. S. A., in 1775. Details as to the construction of the remarkable craft, are recorded in a letter written by the inventor to Thomas Jefferson in 1789, and recorded in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. In this letter Bushnell says:—

"The external shape of the submarine vessel bore some resemblance to the upper tortoise shells of equal size, joined together, the place of entrance into the vessel being represented by the opening made by the swell of the shells at the head of the animal. The inside was capable of containing the operator and air sufficient to support him thirty minutes without receiving fresh air. At the bottom, opposite to the entrance, was fixed a quantity of lead for ballast. At one edge, which was directly before the operator, who sat upright, was an oar for rowing forward and backward. At the other edge was a rudder for steering. An aperture at the bottom, with its valves, was designed to admit water for the purpose of descending, and two brass forcing-pumps served to eject the water within when necessary for ascending. At the top there was likewise an oar for ascending or descending, or continuing at any particular depth. A water-gauge or barometer determined the depth of descent, a compass directed the course, and a ventilator within supplied the vessel with fresh air when on the surface.

"The vessel was chiefly ballasted with lead fixed to its bottom; when this was not sufficient a quantity was placed within, more or less according to the weight of the operator; its ballast made it so stiff that there was no danger of oversetting. The vessel, with all its appendages and the operator, was of sufficient weight to settle it very low in the water. About two hundred pounds of lead at the bottom for ballast could be let down forty or fifty feet below the vessel; this enabled the operator to rise instantly to the surface of the water in case of accident.

"When the operator would descend, he placed his foot upon the top of a brass valve, depressing it, by which he opened a large aperture in the bottom of the vessel, through which the water entered at his pleasure; when he had admitted a sufficient quantity he descended very gradually; if he admitted too much he ejected as much as was necessary to obtain an equilibrium by the two brass forcing-pumps which were placed at each hand. Whenever the vessel leaked, or he would ascend to the surface, he also made use of these forcing-pumps. When the skillful operator had obtained an equilibrium he would row upward or downward, or continue at any particular depth, with an oar placed near the top of the vessel, formed upon the principle of the screw, the axis of the oar entering the vessel; by turning the oar one way he raised the vessel, by turning it the other he depressed it.

"An oar, formed upon the principle of a screw, was fixed in the fore part of the vessel; its axis entered the vessel, and being turned one way, rowed the vessel forward, but being turned the other way rowed it backward; it was made to be turned by the hand or foot.

"Behind the submarine vessel was a place above the rudder for carrying a large powder magazine. This was made of two pieces of oak timber, large enough when hollowed out to contain one hundred and fifty pounds of powder, with the apparatus used in firing it, and was secured in its place by a screw turned by the operator. A strong piece of rope extended from the magazine to the wood screw above mentioned, and was fastened to both. When the wood screw was fixed to be cast off from its tube, the magazine was to be cast off likewise by unscrewing it, leaving it hanging to the wood screw; it was lighter than the water, that it might rise up against the object to which the wood screw and itself were fastened.

"Within the magazine was an apparatus constructed to run any proposed length of time under twelve hours; when it had run its time it unpinioned a strong lock resembling a gun-lock, which gave fire to the powder. This apparatus was so pinioned that it could not possibly move till, by casting off the magazine from the vessel, it was set in motion.

"The skillful operator could swim so low on the surface of the water as to approach very near a ship in the night without fear of being discovered, and might, if he chose, approach the stem or stem above the water with very little danger. He could sink very quickly, keep at any depth he pleased, and row a great distance in any direction he desired without coming to the surface, and when he rose to the surface he could soon obtain a fresh supply of air. If necessary, he might descend again and pursue his course.

"After various attempts to find an operator to my wish, I sent one who appeared more expert than the rest from New York to a fifty-gun ship lying not far from Governor's Island. He went under the ship and attempted to fix the wooden screw in her bottom, but struck, as he supposed, a bar of iron which passes from the rudder hinge, and is spiked under the ship's quarter. Had he moved a few inches, which he might have done without rowing, I have no doubt but that he would have found wood where he might have fixed the screw, or if the ship were sheathed with copper he might easily have pierced it; but not being well skilled in the management of the vessel, in attempting to move to another place he lost the ship. After seeking her in vain for some time he rowed some distance and rose to the surface of the water, but found daylight had advanced too far that he durst not renew the attempt. He says that he could easily have fastened the magazine under the stem of the ship above the water, as he rowed up to the stern and touched it before he descended. Had he fastened it there the explosion of one hundred and fifty pounds of powder (the quantity contained in the magazine) must have been fatal to the ship. In his return from the ship to New York he passed near Governor's Island, and thought he was discovered by the enemy on the island. Being in haste to avoid the danger he feared, he cast off the magazine, as he imagined it retarded him in the swell, which was very considerable. After the magazine had been cast off one hour, the time the infernal apparatus was set to run, it blew up with great violence."