Show THE GREAT EASTERN How the BIg Vessel was Used and Finally Disposed of A few days since the last blow was struck in the destruction of the greatest merchant steamship that had ever floated in any waters The last piece of iron that entered into tho construction of the Great Eastern has been sent to the junk shop It required about fifteen months to demolish this ship The keel of the Great Eastern was laid in 1853 The great ship was in process pro-cess of construction about six years One of the most renowned engineers of Great Britain drew the plans and had tho oversight over-sight of the work Tho ship was designed for the East India trade and more espec ially for the transportation of troops There was no Suez canal in those days Steamers to India made the passage by way of the Cape of Good Hope requiring at that time from sixty to eighty days It was expected that the Great Eastern would make tho passage in about thirty days and that if necessary the vessel would be able to transport 10000 troops on a single trip It is a notable fact that the great ship never was engaged in the transportation transporta-tion of troops to India and never made a single voyage to that country The vessel was much too large to go through tho Suez canal which was completed at a later dav She had a register of 18915 tons and was 6S0 feet long With a full cargo her draft was anout thirty feet As the vessel was fitted up there were accdmmodations for 4000 of various classes of passengers and a crew of 400 With 12000 tons of coal on board there was room for about 5000 tons of freight The ship never carried that number of passengers nor was any such dead weight of coal and cargo ever put on board The Great Eastern was unfortunate from the start The vessel was built ahead of the times On the trial trip there was an explosion of a feedwater heather by which several persons were killed and wounded It was not till June 1860 that the Great Eastern was sent over to this country as a show ship bringing fortytwo passengers out and taking sixty eight on the return voyage Tho speed on tbe western voyage was a little over twelve knots an hour and on tho return voyage tho average was fourteen four-teen knots an hour On the round voyage rjthe Great Eastern burned 5620 tons of coal In Now York 100000 persons visited the ship for which an admission charge was made It was reported that the total receipts did not pay the expenses In tho following year the ship made another an-other to New York trip bringing 100 pas stingers and making the voyage in nine days and fourteen hours running time On the return trip 212 passengers were taken and the voyage was made in nine days and thirteen thir-teen hours That was considered an extraordinary traordinary performance The next voyage woa made to Quebec the chin was Inrruin < Y 3300 troops and making ono Tt the shortest g Tips on record In September 1SG1 the Great Eastern started on anther an-ther voyage to New York with 400 passengers But when a few hundred miles out a gale was encountered which disabled both paddlewheels and wrenched off tho rudderhead The ship returned by the aid of her new screw en g nes and the voyage was abandoned In the following year seyeral voyages wera made between Liverpool and New York But in August of that year the Great Eastern East-ern on her outward voyage struck a rock off Montauk Point knocking a hole in hull eras hull about eighty feet long and four feet wide The inner shell ot w the vessel was not broken and the ship was brought into p port and was beached and repaired There was no dry dock in this country that could Lake up the ship Another fact of interest was that the Great Eastern could not be brought into the port of New York by way of Sandy Hook but on account of her great draught was compelled to enter and depart by way of Long Island sound It was at the eastern east-ern entrance of this sound that the hidden rock was struck over which vessels bailed ad b-ailed for more than two hundred a r years without an accident At the time the Great Eastern was constructed con-structed every known improvement in naval architecture was included The screw and paddlewheels were driven by independent I engines The great ship was swift and the passenger and carrying capacity exceeded that of any ship that had ever been put afloat There were few compartments the double shell being the main lle dependence in case of accident to the hull There were no compound engines and the consumption of coal was enormous It is probable that if the hull as then constructed had been supplied with such engines as are now working up to20000horsepower and are driving the largest of the great passenger ships tho Great Eastern would have been more nearly a success Tho improvements that have since been made cover about a third of a century The gain has been an enormous one It was considered as good as settled that there never would be another steamship constructed of the size of the Great Eastern East-ern That venture it was supposed would stand alone for all time But the largest passenger steamer now afloat exceeds a little COO feet in length Several have ape tonnage of 10000 tons Two steamship are reported as on the stocks in Europe that will bo of 140UO tons These great steamships are gradually creeping up to the tonnage of the Great Eastern altbouch it may be many a day before that mark will be reached The best part of the history of this ship is that connected with the laying of the first ocean cables The first effort made in 1855 was a failure after lbOO mile of cable bad been run out But a year later in June tho work was resumed and thro han that instrumentality the first great h-an cable of the world was laid The ship wa found admirably adapted for such a service and was afterward employed to lay a num her of other cables If there is a shade of regret that such a noble ship has been sent in pieces to the junk shop it is also re lieved by the fact that even the failures reDL this largest ship of the world are honorably honor-ably connected with the subsequent triumps of naval architecture Sa Francisco Fran-cisco Bulletin n |