engines in those days were not very economical, needing four or five times as much fuel for the same power as the engines of recent date.
It was not until 1838 that the problem was solved. On April 23d of that year a most significant event took place. Two steamships dropped anchor in the harbor of New York, the Sirius and the Great Western. Both of these had made the entire voyage under steam, the Sirius, in eighteen and a half and the Great Western in fourteen and a half days, measuring from Queenstown. The Sirius had taken on board 450 tons of coal, but all this was burned by the time Sandy Hook was reached, and she had to burn her spare spars and forty-three barrels of rosin to make her way up the bay. The Great Western, on the contrary, had coal to spare.
Two innovations in shipbuilding were soon introduced. These were the building of iron instead of wooden ships and the replacing of the paddle wheel by the screw propeller. The screw-propeller was first successfully introduced by the famous Swede, John Ericsson, in 1835. His propeller was tried in a small vessel, forty-five feet long and eight wide, which was driven at the rate of ten miles an hour, and towed a large packet ship at fair speed. Ericsson, not being appreciated in England, came to America to experiment. Other inventors were also at work in the same line.
Their experiments attracted the attention of Isambard Brunel, one of the greatest engineers of the period, who was then engaged in building a large paddle-wheel steamer, the Great Britain. Appreciating the new idea, he had the engines of the new ship changed and a screw propeller introduced. This ship, a great one for the time, 322 feet long and of 3443 tons, made her first voyage from Liverpool to New York in 1845, her average speed being 12? knots an hour, the length of the voyage 14 days and 21 hours.
By the date named the crossing of the Atlantic by steamships had become a common event. In 1840 the British and Royal Mail Steam Packet Company was organized, its chief promoter being Samuel Cunard, of Halifax, Nova Scotia, whose name has long been attached to this famous line.
The first fleet of the Cunard Line comprised four vessels, the Britannia, Acadia, Caledonia and Columbia. The Unicorn, sent out by this company as a pioneer, entered Boston harbor on June 2, 1840, being the first steamship from Europe to reach that port. Regular trips began with the Britannia, which left Liverpool on July 4, 1840. For a number of years later this line enjoyed a practical monopoly of the steam carrying trade between England and the United States. Then other companies came into the field, chief among them being the Collins Line, started in 1849, and of short duration, and the Inman Line, instituted in 1850.
We should say something here of the comforts and conveniences provided for the passengers on these early lines. They differed strikingly from those on the leviathans of recent travel and were little, if any, superior to those on the packet ships, the active rivals at that date of the steamers. Then there were none of the comfortable smoking rooms, well-filled libraries, drawing rooms, electric lights, and other modern improvements. The saloons and staterooms were in the extreme after part of the vessel, but the stateroom of that day was little more than a closet, with two berths, one above the other, and very little standing room between these and the wall. By paying nearly double fare a passenger might secure a room for himself, but the room given him did not compare well even with that of small and unpretentious modern steamers.
Other ocean steamship companies gradually arose, some of which are still in existence. But no especial change in ship-building was introduced until 1870, when the Oceanic Company, now known as the White Star Line, built the Britannic and Germanic. These were the largest of its early ships. They were 468 feet long and 35 feet wide, constituting a new type of extreme length as compared with their width. In the first White Star ship, the Oceanic, the improvements above mentioned were introduced, the saloons and staterooms being brought as near as possible to the center of the ship. All the principal lines built since that date have followed this example, thus adding much to the comfort of the first-class passengers.
Speed and economy in power also became features of importance, the tubular boiler and the compound engine being introduced. These have developed into the cylindrical, multitubular boiler and the triple expansion engine, in which a greater percentage of the power of the steam is utilized and four or five times the work obtained from coal over that of the old system. The side-wheel was continued in use in the older ships until this period, but after 1870 it disappeared.
It has been said that the life of iron ships, barring disasters at sea, is unlimited, that they cannot wear out. This statement has not been tested, but the fact remains that the older passenger ships have gone out of service and that steel has now taken the place of iron, as lighter and more durable.
Something should also be said here of the steam turbine engine, recently introduced in some of the greatest liners, and of proven value in several particulars, an important one of these being the doing away with the vibration, an inseparable accompaniment of the old style engines. The Olympic and Titanic engines were a combination of the turbine and reciprocating types. In regard to the driving power, one of the recent introductions is that of the multiple propeller. The twin screw was first applied in the City of New York, of the Inman line, and enabled her to make in 1890 an average speed of a little over six days from New York to Queenstown. The best record up to October, 1891, was that of the Teutonic, of five days, sixteen hours, and thirty minutes. Triple-screw propellers have since then been introduced in some of the greater ships, and the record speed has been cut down to the four days and ten hours of the Lusitania in 1908 and the four days, six hours and forty-one minutes of the Mauretania in 1910.
The Titanic was not built especially for speed, but in every other way she was the master product of the shipbuilders’ art. Progress through the centuries has been steady, and perhaps the twentieth century will prepare a vessel that will be unsinkable as well as magnificent. Until the fatal accident the Titanic and Olympic were considered the last words on ship-building; but much may still remain to be spoken.
CHAPTER XXVII. SAFETY AND LIFE-SAVING DEVICES
THE fact that there are any survivors of the Titanic left to tell the story of the terrible catastrophe is only another of the hundreds of instances on record of the value of wireless telegraphy in saving life on shipboard. Without Marconi’s invention it is altogether probable that the world would never have known of the nature of the Titanic’s fate, for it is only barely within the realm of possibility that any of the Titanic’s passengers’ poorly clad, without proper provisions of food and water, and exposed in the open boats to the frigid weather, would have survived long enough to have been picked up by a transatlantic liner in ignorance of the accident to the Titanic.
Speaking (since the Titanic disaster) of the part which wireless telegraphy has played in the salvation of distressed ships, Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of this wonderful science, has said:
“Fifteen years ago the curvature of the earth was looked upon as the one great obstacle to wireless telegraphy. By various experiments in the Isle of Wight and at St. John’s I finally succeeded in sending the letter S 2000 miles.
“We have since found that the fog and the dull skies in the vicinity of England are exceptionally favorable for wireless telegraphy.”
Then the inventor told of wireless messages being transmitted 2500 miles across the Abyssinian desert, and of preparation for similar achievements.
“The one necessary requirement for continued success is that governments keep from being enveloped in political red tape,” said he.
“The fact that a message can be flashed across the wide expanse of ocean in ten minutes has exceeded my fondest expectations. Some idea of the progress made may be had by citing the fact that in eleven years the range of wireless telegraphy has increased from 200 to 3000 miles.
“Not once has wireless telegraphy failed in calling and securing help on the high seas. A recognition of this is shown in the attitude of the United States Government in compelling all passenger-carrying vessels entering our ports to be equipped with wireless apparatus.”
Of the Titanic tragedy, Marconi said:
“I know you will all understand when I say that I entertain a deep feeling of gratitude because of the fact that wireless telegraphy has again contributed to the saving of life.”
