Show I 1 from the london tandon quarterly review march 1856 ISM THE MONSTER ONSTER 19 STEAMSHIP STEAD ISHIP the tha liia voyager up and down the thames has noticed with the last eighteen months the slow growth of a huge structure on oil I 1 ie to southern extremity of the isle of dogs at ast ast a fw fow enormous poles alone cut the skyline aud arrested his attention then vast plates of iron mat seemed big enough to form shields for the g ds r reared eared themselves edgeways at great distan s apart and as months elapsed a wall of metal p wy arose between him and the ilia horizon the sooty engineer as he leans over the bul but of bridegroom no 2 when questioned rejecting s it tells you it is tila tile the ilia big shi ship he knows 10 lo 10 0 more if moved by curiosity the voyager hails abbat and rows ashore the sturdy oarsman canonry can only tl tal you it is the big ship if you question jack whom you sea see se coming corning along the road laden with a green parrot and a bundle of yams bams as to what th thi y are doing here he will eye the huge mass for for a moment and reply with a vacant negative even thoss thosa who are informed of its purpose doubt aud and argue respecting ft it bookee Lo okee oklee here 9 said eaid all an cid salt to us pointing with his pipe to the stem and tho the stern of odthe the ship which lie parallel with wl th the river heres her tier starn and heres her stem and heres heros the water and how they are ere going to launch he her r I 1 cant figure 1 the tile great ship or great eastern as she is sometimes called projected by the eminent engi engl leerar iee lee r mr brunnel the father of or transatlantic steam navigation although building in the tile midst of the tile largest collection of seafaring sea faring raring people in the world stands a wonder and a puzzle puzzi to them all and indeed the moment you are ara inside the works of scott russel co at Mill wall wali you yon feel the reason of the strange eye with which the maritime population view the monster which is slowly growing up and overshadowing not only the ship yard itself but the portion odthe of the new town immediately in its neighborhood where are the merry ship carpen carpenters caulking away with monotonous dead founding rounding blow where are the artisans arti chipping with their adzes addes rearing up one after another huge ribs and laying the massive keel where are I 1 lla ila tia tie br augurs gleaming in the sun as sturdy arms work out tile tiie bolt holes none nona of these old accustomed sights and sounds of ship building are to be found but in their place we see the tile arm of steam might mightier ler ier than that far fsr f thor wielding some iron shaft big agthe as the mast of some huge admiral I 1 or punching inch plates of iron as quickly and as noiselessly nois noli lessly as a lady punches card baird for a fancy fair lair ornament steel urged by the same potent mast inas mastern terig erh ern seen showing its mastery over iron as the huge lathes revolve or the ilia machine pursues steadily its resistless course whilst in ili place of the shavings of the carpenter long ringlets of dull grey metal metai cumber camber the ground I 1 he ship car carpenter p enter is transmuted into a brawny smith and the civil engineer takes the place of the marine architect A closer inspection of this leviathan Levi athau vessel snows shows us how bov completely the employment of a new material has necessitated new ideas with respect to construction she runs along or rather rattler will for forshe she bhe is not yet quite up in frame some seven hundred feet those portions of other lier tier yet unfinished at tit stem and stern show her partitions or lor bulkheads running nearly saty sixty feet in ili height heiart and standing just sixty feet apart if we examine tiie tile outer walls of these huge partitions we see at once t lat tat the ship has no ribs springing from a keel or back bone none ilone of the ordinary framework by which her tier bulging sides are maintained in their places but on closer inspection it is found that hat sie slie has a system of ribs or webs longitudinal instead of transverse running from stem to stern of the ship up 0 to o eight jeet above her tier deep water tine line and riveted side of or these thirty two webs or ribs which are again subdivided at convenient lengths are plates of iron three quarters af f an inch in thirk kness nees neep forming a double skin to the ship or a dermis derman and epidermis thus her tier framework forms a system of or cells which like he the manai mauai tube combines the minimum of weight with the maximum of strength A glance at the tran transverse tr anverse verse versa section will show at once this portion of her structure hitherto it has been the practice to build iron ships an fn in exactly the same manner as regards framework as wooden ones that is the strength odthe of the sides has been made gradually to lighten tighten towards the deck which being of wood can offer but slight resisting power thus iron ships odthe of the old method of construction are peculiarly liable to break their backs upon the tile application of force either to their two ends or to the center of their keel keels just in short as a tube would be easily broken one side of which was made much st stronger ronger than the other tile the birkenhead iron troopship troop ship was a melancholy instance in instance stange of this unscientific method ofton of construction st tion tiou for it will be remembered that immediately she struck her tier wooden deck doubled up and snapped in two as a stick would snap across the knee while stem and stern reared for a moment high in the air and then went down like stones into the deep As you stand watching the process of building up this double skin or framework of the ship the question immediately strikes the mind how are ara these unyielding plates of inch iron made to accommodate themselves toiler toller to ller tier lines 1 which are seen se en to run ran as finely fore and aft as th those thosa ose of a thames wa wager er boat how are the innumerable curves which die away into each other to be produced by any aggregation of rectilinear pieces of flat boiler plate 1 la t t ill hi ordinary wooden ships the planking ey by its les tes elasticity allows itself to be modeller modelled model led to the ribs but here there are no ribs in the true sense of the word and the form of the vessel must depend upon the inclination given to each separate piece of iron before the tile fastening process is commenced and such in fact is the case every individual plate before being fixed in its proper position was the subject of a selin separate rate study to the en engineer I 1 neer of the a ten thousand or thereabout there about that compose the framework of tile the ship only a gew few situated in tile the section are alike either in size or in curve for each a model in wood or term tern ee elata elate late as it is technically illy called had originally to e made and by these patterns the ilia plates were cut into their required shapes by the huge steam shears in hi exactly the same manner as the tailor cuts out the various portions of a garment the list lisy or inclination to be given to each plate is the next process to be gone through and this is produced by passing it through gli gil a system of rollers roi lers which can be so reserved in their action and so adjusted as to give it any required curve the template studded with holes around its margin is then titled fitted to it and a boy with a stick dipped in lead marks through them the places upon the iron where the rivet holes are to be punched when this last process is completed the plate plato is lettered with two or three separate letters indicating the precise place it has to take in the ship thus the hull is first carefully though tout in retail deta 11 and is then regularly and mechanically i put together in much the same way as a tessel abed pavement th process of fastening the plates affords curious contrast to the old method of bolting employed by the ship carpenters the holes in ili the places to be held together being brought inexact in exact apposition bolts at a white heat arbone are one by one introduced and firmly riveted whilst in that condition by a group of three men one the upholder who holds the bolt in its position by placing a hammer against its lead head load on the inside of the ship whilst two bourdy cans with alternate blows produce the rivet head on the other the bolts contract in cooling and draw the tho plates together with tila ilia force of a vice and hold them so forever afterwards the rapidity with which this process is performed strikes the spectator with astonishment A set of three men and a boy to shovel the hot bolts bolls out of the furnace will ili in the course of a day close up four hundred rivets and speed in the process is requisite when we remember that before the ship can swim three million of them must be made secure if I 1 I 1 we clamber up the ladders which lead to lier tier deck some GO 60 feet above the ground we perceive that her interior presents fully us as strange a contrast to other vessels as tile the construction of her bull does doea ten perfectly water tight bulkheads placed 60 feet apart having iio no openings 0 whatever lower than the second deck divide the ship transversely whilst two longitudinal walls of iron 36 feet apart traverse 50 feet of the length of the ship thus dhus the interior is divided like the sides into a system of or cells or boxes besides these main divisions there are a great number 0 ot sub ments beneath the lowest deck devoted to the boiler rooms engine alight 8 rooms coal and cargo ac whilst some 40 or 50 feet of her tier stem and stern are rendered almost as rigid as so much solid iron by being divided by iron decks from bulwark to keel kel her upper deck is double and is also composed of a system of cells formed by plates and angle irons by this tin s multiplication of rectilinear compartments the ship is made almest as strong as if she site were of solid iron whilst by the same system of construction she site is rendered as light and as indestructible comparatively speaking as a piece of balbon ft there is a separate principle of ilfe life in every distinct portion and she could not well be destroyed even if broken into two or three pieces since the fragments like those of a divided worm would be able to sustain an indea independent adent existence A better idea perhaps of the tile interior of the ship can be gained at the present moment than when she slie has progressed farther towards completion As you traverse her mighty deck flush hush from stem to stern the great compartments made by the traverse and longitudinal bulkheads or parti walls wails of iron shape ofa of a series of parallelograms sixty feet in length by thirty six in width numerous doors in the walls walla of these yawning openings at once reveal that it is liere here that the ho els ol 01 the steamship will be located if we were to take the row of houses belonging to mr givart alivaro and drop them down one gulf take Farrance Farran cels celd sand and drop it down the second take morless Mor leys at charring chairing Ch arring cross and fit it into a third and adjust the great western hotel at paddington and the great northern at kings cross into aper tures four and five we should get some faint idea of the nature odthe of the accommodation the great eastern will sord afford ff we speak of dropping hotels down these holes because the separate compartments will be as distinct from each other ether as so many different houses each will have its splendid saloon saloons upper sipper and lower of 60 feet in length its bedrooms or cabins its kitchen and its bar and tile tila passeri passengers gers will no more be able to walk from the one to the other than the inhabitants of one house in westbourne terrace could comm communicate u licate through the parti pard walls wails with their next door neighbors the only process by which visiting can be carried oil on will be by means of the upper deck decher decker or main thoroughfare of the ship nor are we using figures of speech when we compare the space which is contained in tila the new ship to the united accommodation afforded tifford ed by b several of the largest hotels in london she is destined to carry 00 first class 2000 second class and 1200 third class passenger geres independently of or the s hips complement making a total of guests A reference to the longitudinal and transverse sections will explain her 41 internal economy more readily than words tile tiie series of saloons together with the sleeping apartments extending over feet are located III in the middle instead of aft according to tile the usual arrangement the advantage of this disposition of tile the hotel department must be evident to all those who have been to sea and know the advantage of a snug berth as near as possible to the center of the ship where its transverse and longitudinal ax axa o meet and where of course there is fo no motion at all it will be observed that the passengers girs are placed immediately above the boilers and engines but the latter are completely shat shut off from the living freight by a strongly arched roof of iron above which and below the lowest iron deck the coal will wi 11 be b a stowed and will prevent all sound and vibration from penetrating to the inhabitants in tila llie upper stories As the engine and boiler rooms are separated from each other by bulkheads in exactly the same manner as the saloons a peculiar ar arrangement ran gement has been made to connect their machin machul 1 ery without interfering with their watertight water tight character two tunnels of or a sufficient size to give free passage to the engineers are constructed fore and aft in the center of the coal bu bunkers akers through all the great iron parti walls by this ar ran gement the steam and water pipes which give life and motion to the ship will be enabled to traverse her great divisions just as the aorta traverses in its sheath the human diaphragm m let us return however lio iio wever for a few moments no ments to the deck in order to give the reader a clear idea of the magnitude of the structure under our feet the exact dimensions over all are feet there are few persons who will thoroughly comprehend the capacity of these figures neither grosvenor it nor or belgrave square could take the great eastern in n berkley square would barely admit her in its long ong dimension and when rigged not at all for h her er mizen boom would project some little way up davies treet whilst her bowsprit if slie she had one would hang a long way over the marquis of lans downes garden ju in short slie site is the eighth of a mile in length and her tier passengers will never be able to complain of being cooped up as four turns up and down her deck will afford them a miles walk her width is equally astonishing from side to side of her hull she mea med measures 83 feet the width of pall fall mall mail but toross tile the paddle boxes her breadth is feet that is slie she could just steam up portland place scraping with iier tier paddles the houses on either side with the exception of tile the skylights sky lights and openings for ventilating the lower saloons her deck is flush fore and aft I 1 however splendid th tars s promenade might appear with respect to those of other ships we question if it is at all too large for tile tiie moving town to whose use it is dedicated room must be found for the holiday strolling of between three and four thousand persons whilst slie she is careering through the heated atmosphere of the trophies and not merely for a few score blue nosed gentlemen gent lemin such as use the deck of the transatlantic trans atlantic steamers for a severe exercising ground the manner la in which this moving city rather |