Show OCEAN TRAVELING A lim LITTLE B over eighty years ago robert bobert fulton placed the first steamboat that the world had ever seen on the hudson river As the little vessel lay at anchor quite a crowd gathered on the banks to look at her and numerous were the observations and comments heard on every hand and side quite a large number were filled with skepticism and one man was heard to say Is that the tiling thing to go up the river against the wind and against the tide without any oars and without any sails absurd impossible and he laughed and quite a number joined him bye and bye the sailors were seen on the deck working at the windlass and heaving up the anchor in a few minutes after the anchor hove to in sight eight the vessel began to move slowly at first but steadily up the river aver against both wind and tide the crowd stood gazing after her 11 ll 11 bound until she had passed completely out of sight when the wiseacre who had spoken before aate well she has gone but she will vill never come back baak Noth withstanding the worlds croakers every year saw numerous and important improvements in steamboats and their machinery but tor for a long time no one dreamt of attempting to travel on the ocean by when at last it was suggest ad e an english nobleman nob nobleman lemon said he would eat the boilers of the first mboag that crossed the atlantic ocean if herried he tried it hemus he must have hurt his teeth thirty years after Pul Ful tons little steamer ascended the hudson the attempt was made to cross the ocean and was completely successful the president prent one of the very first to cross was however lost with all hands no trace of her was ever found the great wesa was I 1 believe the very first to cross the ocean and she made scores of voyages and was singularly free from accidents of every kind bind the earliest company to establish a regular service was the cunard which soon became and remains to this day the most popular and best patronized of any line of ocean steamers A few facts partly culled from a paper written by mr john burna bums the chairman of the company are very interesting their first ship the built in 1889 was 1300 tons burden on leaving liverpool she took tons of mw coal for her outward voyage she burned burado 44 tons per day her steam pressure was 9 pounds and her speed a little over 8 knots per hour gradually and steadily as new vessels were built they increased in every particular until they reached the scotia scoria she was nearly three times the size of the Bril tannia ri fannia and could steam 14 knots per hour I 1 mention the scotia because she was the last of the paddle wheelers since her time the screw has completely superseded the paddle the last and finest vessels added to the cunard line were the sister ships dvoria and etruria DO Ef uria ruria built in 1885 these vessels are 8 tons burden over 6 times the size the etruria has averaged a speed of 18 knots in nine consecutive voyages between queenstown Queens town and new york which is equal to 21 statute miles per hour or somewhat greater than the average speed of the ordinary train service on any railway in the world her engines indicate fourteen thousand hors horsepower power and are supplied with stream from nine double ended boiler boller with eight furnaces or a total of seventy two furnaces the total consumption of coal is tong per day or 12 tons per hour or pounds per minute and if the whole of the fires were raked together and formed into one large fire there would be forty two tons of coal or a mass twenty feet long twenty feet broad and rather more than four feet high burning fiercely besides the coal gallons of oil are used dally daily for journals jou bearings etc in the engine room are the dynamos and driving engines used for lightning the ship by electricity tri city her crew la Is made up as follows captain 6 officers surgeon purser 46 seamen 2 carpenters boatswain and mate 2 masters at arms 12 engineers firemen and trimmers 72 stewards 6 stewardesses 24 cooks and assistants in all hands the amount of provisions groceries etc on board at the time of sailing is very large on the of august last the acuria with cabin passengers and a crew of had on board when leaving liverpool the following quantities of provisions IN Bs fresh beef me ibs corned beef me Ks mutton me Hs lamb lbs ibs veal me ibs pork 2000 ibs ft fresh fish fOW fowls eb chickens ickens ducks 50 geese 80 turkeys brace grouse 15 tons potatoes 30 hampers vegetables quarts ice cream 1000 quarts milk and eggs in groceries alone there were diffie different rent articles including for the round voyage of 21 days me ibs tea 1200 me coffee 1600 ibs be white sugar 2800 the moist sugar ibs ibis pulverized iced sugar 2000 ibs butter 1500 Ss cheese me Bs ham and 1000 me ibs bacon the ibre foregoing going seem enormous quantities but very little was left upon the vesse arrival in port the consumption may easily be accounted for when it is considered that the crew use me ibs of meat per day 2 the ibs per head and that the ibs are used daily to make beef tea breakfast lunch and dinner for passengers account for the remainder ma inder the number of eggs appears to be a large con for a seven day passage it is in reality more than an egg per minute from the time the ship sails from liverpool until her arrival in pew few york but they are prepared in many ways fr for breakfast and disappear in hundreds at supper in fact it is not an unusual thing to see a lady or gentleman finish off on a supper ol of grilled chicken and devil led sardines with four poached eggs on toast lemons demons are used at the rate me of 1200 per day oranges 2000 per day and apples 1500 per day the quantities of wines and spirits for consumption on on the round voyage comprises 1100 bottles champagne bottles claret bottles ale 2500 bottles porter bottles aerated water and bottles spirits etc crockery is broken very extensive ly being at the rate of plates eum cups saucers 1213 tumblers wine glasses 27 decanters and 65 water bottles in a single voyage As regards the consumption on board the fleet for one year it may be said that their sheep and oxen feed on a thousand hills for they consume no less than sheep 1800 lambs and 2500 oxen this is equivalent to over two million pounds of meat or over four pounds per er anu minute they consume a million eggs and they drink lbs as of tea and ft ibson of coffee sweetened with ibs Bs of sugar every year whilst the fee following articles also figure largely 14 1 q tons of mustard 2 tons pepper bottles tins sardines 80 tons salt fish lbs bbs of jam jana 15 tons marmalade 22 tons ral raisins sips figs and currants 16 tons split peas 18 tons barley 17 tons rice 34 84 tons oatmeal tons toils flour 75 tons haws hams and bacon 15 tons cheese tons potatoes fowls ducks 2200 turkeys 2200 geese tablets of pears soap pounds windsor slap soap and 10 tons yellow soap the passengers annually drink and smoke to the following extent bottles and half bottles champagne bottles and half bottles claret bottles other win wines bottles ale and porter bottles mineral waters bottles spirits pounds of tobacco 6 31 cigars et cigar gar bettes the heaviest item is naturally coal of which they burn tons or almost 1000 tons for every day in the year this quantity of coal if built as a wall four feet high and one foot thick would reach from lake to th san francisco it takes takee to run the fleet 34 84 captains officers engineers boilermakers re and carpenters seamen firemen stewards 62 stewardesses 42 women to keep the upholstery and linen in order with 1100 of a shore gang or about people in all to run ran the fleet which traverses yearly over the ocean a distance more than equal to five times that between the earth and the moon it would be scarcely fair to conclude this sketch without mentioning some of the other ocean lines the inman have quite recently added to their fleet the OW of new york A and nd the ft of farm these are both considerable larger than the etruria JES ruria being about tons burden it was expected that they would eclipse her in speed but this have failed to do up to the present the passage from ew york to queenstown Queens town 6 0 days 1 hour hoar and 50 minutes is the best on record it must be admitted by all impartial observers that in the improvement of ocean steamers more particularly t ticul arly in regard to speed a great deal is due to the guion line the arbona arkona and the alaska were unquestionably the pioneer ocean greyhounds grey hounds and led up to the building of the great vessels which have been referred to and it was only the superior wealth of the cunaro cunard company which enabled them to 0 triumph in the end there is another thing I 1 must not forget and that is the fact that the condition of the third claw class or steerage passengers in these great floating palaces is anything but comfortable I 1 have crossed the ocean in one of the guion boats and in one of the great Cunard ers and must say that I 1 would rather pay to go in the gulon guion boat than be carried third class in the Cuna rier for nothing the great gulf that divides the rich and the poor is perhaps no where on the face of the earth so clearly marked as it is on an ocean steamer the rich man is allowed to roam all over the ship but the poor man must not put his foot on the deck anywhere beyond a very narrow corner which is assigned to him the gulon guion steamers have carried our people for many years and have honestly endeavored to give them as much comfort as was possible and although I 1 have not crossed the ocean with a company of saints I 1 was wag made very comfortable in the arizona before closing this sketch I 1 wish to say that I 1 am frequently asked questions about the largest vessel ever built I 1 mean the ark built by the patriarch reb noah most men axe are agreed that as the ark was wae only intended to float and not built for speed she was not shaped like a modern ship but square like a box the length of the ark was feet the breath 91 feet 8 inches and the depth 55 65 feet this will give a capacity of about tons or three times the size of the great eastern and more than seven times the capacity of the it will take some time ye yet t to overtake noah and if men ever do the vessel so budt could neither get into liverpool nor new york for the want of water SCOTT ANDERSON son |