THE GREAT EASTERN.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VIII, Issue 496, 5 August 1857, Page 3

THE GREAT EASTERN.

(Prom the London Times.)

An old proverb says that " there is nothing new under the sun." With regard to travel abroad, and its ordinary sights, this may be true. Every body knows all about the Crimea. Constantinople and the gaudy wretchedness of the East is as hackneyed as Cheapside. Mont Blanc is as -well known as Primrose-hill. The pyramids exhibit hugei posters about " Warren's Jet." Ararat, wth its unbroken solitude of ages has been invaded; and even the grim icy caverns of the Arctic regions withhold no secrets. The last of the exclusive places is about to be opened to us; and what between correspondents, amateurs, and artists, Hong Kong will soon be as familiar as the Isle of Dogs, and the mystery of the internal domestic economy of the Celestial Empire a thing of no account. What remains to be seen ? Where is a man to go for a new sensation, or a novel sight ? We think we can say. On either side of the river, in the midst of those dreary regions known as East Greenwich and Millwall, where the atmosphere is tarry, and everything seems slimy and amphibious, where it is hard to say whether the land has been rescued from the the water, or the water encroached upon the land, where|the shops sell anchors, ship's cables, howitzers, hemp, hammocks, and other nautical remains, or at most only rise to the elegancies of tarpawling suits, limp sou-westers, and suchlike weather-beaten luxuries, —two gigantio schemes are in progress, which, if not entire novelties, are at least as near approaches to it as this generation is ever likely to witness. That at East Greenwich is the manufacture of the great Atlantic submarine telegraph; at Millwall lies Scott .Russell's leviathan ship the_ Great Eastern. At the former place the visitor (if not also a shareholder) can realize the great idea. There in a comparatively small compass, coil over coil, till the eye is pained and dazzled in attempts to follow it, lies the monstrous1 cable, like the endless snake of the Scandinavian mythology, which was said to encircle the world. Bui with the Great Eastern steamship the case is different. It is difficult, if not entirely impossible, for the mind to appreciate and realize its immense bulk at once. The visitor catches no glimpse of it till he enters Scott Eussell's yard, when, though the ship is still at a considerable distance, it seems suddenly to shut him in—a mountain of metal across his path—while all around are scattered ponderous masses of girders, funnels, bulkheads, boilers, and machinery, like the debris of some colossal iron world. *So vast is the bulk of the hug^e ark, that from no one point, save at the river's side, can the eye take in its whole proportions, and even then its immensity is so great, in comparison with all the notions previously conceived of monster ships, that it seems to elude comprehension, and weigh upon the mind—a kind of iron nightmare —a phenomenon, hard and unrealizable. It is useless looking at it, so you try by details to bring the mind to an approximation of its size, and wander about the yard in search of familiar objects which may restore to their equilibrium your disordered ideas_ of proportion. On the ground lies something like a field of red iron with a kind of edge of the same material all round it, and on this you walk until you find it to be the last and smallest of bulkheads, or water-tight compartments, and which in the course of a day or so will be lifted bodily 100 feet into the air, and placed in the stern of the ship. Again disturbed in _ your fancies, you seek refuge in the contemplation of a labyrinth of spokes and stays, a semicircle of iron like the supports of a building—wider across than King William Street, larger than the circus at Astley's, and which instinct soon tells you can "be nothing less than part of one of the great ship's paddlewheels. By this time, half used to the Brobdignagian world around,

the "visitor can coolly walk down a couple of long iron tunnels, which in lightness, cheerfulness, and general population, remind him forcibly of the Burlington-arcade. He knows these are two out of five of the ship's chimneys, but is reconciled to the fact, and feels that on the whole they are quite what he expected. So with a row of red buildings which at first look like houses, and seem like the iron suburbs of the vast edifice which towers above them. These are the boilers, though the wildest ideas as to their use seem} to pervade the mass of visitors who peep in at the manholes. They are evidently looked upon (especially by the ladies) as mere iron technicalities quite distinct from the ship, though useful in some remote and unexplained degree—probably as models, or as adjuncts to the captain's toilette. Each of these boilers, however, weighs 45 tons, and is intended to work at a pressure of 25fi>s. to the square inch. Some have already been tested with the hydraulic pump, with a force of upwards of 60&s. to the square inch, and proved so solid and faultless in their construction, that a pressure of IOOTbs. might have been applied with safety. The sight of such objects as these around "gradually restores the visitor's mind, and predisposes him for appreciating bulk at last. He somehow expects to find everything large, and in keeping with the " monster of the deep," and turns with disappointment from the aspect of tall factories and large trees which are dwarfed to things of paltry insignificance. In this frame of mind if he were told that the steam-cradle, which high over all in a massive framework of oaken beams lifts up the boilers and other sundries, was fixed there for the purpose of hoisting in the ship's telescope, he would take this information as a matter of course, and be in no way surprised or moved by the announcement. But we must go to the ship itself, though none are in a hurry at first to mount its lofty sides. Built near it is a tall framework, or rather a wooden tower, by means of which, after toiling up a flight of 94 steps, the deck is gained at last. Here, no matter how much the previous sights may have prepared the ideas, the ship viewed from the deck as one great whole, or rather as much of the great whole as can be seen, for all cannot, is quite beyond the grasp of ordinary comprehensions to realize. In fact, it is like anything but the deck of a ship, though nothing but the deck of the ship is like it. Some of our readers very probably have been on the roof of the Crystal Palace or Great Exhibition while building. Let them recall either of these scenes—the webs of scaffolding, the groups of forges, the cradles and winches, the girders, pillars and plates, the white-head rivets, the punching machines, the monstrous screws, and, above all, the bellowing din of by no means distant thunder, and they can form some idea, though but " m a faint one, of the deck of the Great Eastern.

It is very difficult for any amount of description to eonveyany adequatenotion of a vessel which. is 18,000 tons larger than the largest ship in the world. It may. perhaps, be gained by the visitor who walks to the edge of the vessel, looks up and down the Thames, surveys the the domes of Greenwich Hospital, has a bird'seye view on to the decks of large West-India-men, and wonders at the diminutive proportions of the old three-decker used as the Seamen's Hospital. Or, better still, if he turns his glance from the river and peers cautiously over the edge of the space where the upper and lower saloons for the cabin passengers by the Great Eastern are to be constructed. It seems like looking from a housetop into some ordinary metropolitan square, or the court of an extensive French hotel, at the bottom of which even the noise of the workmen is subdued, for they are 60 feet beneath the spectator. In spite, however, or* these aids to appreciation of its size, one must resort to figures at last in order to understand the monster fully. Her length, then, between the perpendiculars is 680 feet; length on the upper deck, 692 feet—within 28 feet of double the length of height of St. Paul's, and more than double the extreme length of the new United States screw-frigate Niagara, about which the Transatlantics are talking so much. The height from the bottom of the ship to the underside of the planking of the upper deck is 58 feet;, the extreme breadth, is 83 feet, or as wide as Pall-mall; the breadth across the paddle-boxes 120 ft. Already nearly 8,000 tons or 60,000 superficial feet of wrought iron have been used in the 30,000 plates of her hull. To secure these upwards of 3,000,000 wrought iron rivets have been welded in. Her tonnage is within a few tons of 23,000. She will be propelled by paddle engines of 1,500 horse power, and by screw engines of 1,800 horse power, giving a total of 3,300 horse power, at a pressure of 258j5., though of course, if necessary, she can work to a force of upwards of 5,000 horses. For three feet above the watermark the hull is constructed double (on the cellular principle, adopted in the top and bottom of the Britannia tubular bridge), the inner hull or skin, as it is called, being two feet ten inches apart from the outer. In this space, at intervals of six feet run longitudinal webs of iron plates, which are again subdivided by transverse plates into spaces about six feet square. This gives an enormous addition to the strength of the whole frame. At the bottom the longitudinal webs are thicker, and the spaces between them only about three feet square, in order that whenever it is necessary to ground the vessel for any repairs she will support her own weight without strain or injury. Her principal dimensions, cali! ?v, of machinery, and general accommodations may be seen from the following:—

Number of main transverse bulk-

Leads or watertight compart-

ments

Ditto, partial ... 7 Longitudinal bulkheadsrunning fore and aft at a distance of 36 feet apart for a length of 350 feet... 2 Width of space between the two skins of ship „ 2ft. lOin. Length of forecastle 140 ft. Height of ditto ... Bft. Height of saloons on lower deck... 13ft. Bin. Number of saloons 5 Height of saloons on upper deck 12ffc. Number of ditto. ... 5 Length of upper saloons 70ft. Ditto lower ... ...60ft. Thickness of iron plate in keel ... lin. . Ditto inner and outer skins fin. Bulkheads ... ... fin. Iron deck ... PADDLE ENGINES. Number of cylinders 4 Diameter of ditto 74in. Weight of ditto (each).... ... ... 26 tons Length of stroke ... ... ... ...14ft. Number of bottlers ... ...... 4 Furnaces for ditto ... 40 Diameter of paddlewheels 56ft. SCREW ENGINES. Number of cylinders 4 Weight of ditto (each) 30 tons -Diameter of ditto ... 84in. Length of stroke ift. Number of boilers 6 Furnaces for ditto ... 72 Diameter of screw ... ...24ft. Number of blades to dftto ... ... 4 Length of screw shaft ...... ... 150 ft. Weight of ditto (about) ... ... 60 tons Weight of ship engines, &c, as at its launching ■ ... 12,000 tons Immersion of this weight ... ... loft. 6in. Ordinary light draught... 20ft. Probable maximum immersion when fully laden ... 30ft. Quantity of coal which can be carried for voyages ..11,379 tons In addition to these facts we may mention that she will have six masts and 10 anchors. . All the former will be of hollow wrought iron, except the last or mizen mast, on which, at a height of 84 feet from the deck, will be placed the compass.' The masts will spread together no less than 9.500 square yards of canvass, though, having no bowsprit, she, of course, can ■ carry no spritsail. Three of the masts will be ■ squared-rigged withjiron spars, except the upper topsail-yards. . The rigging will be of wire, and '■■ the large shrouds of this material will be eight and a half inches in circumference. She will carry 20 large boats on deck; some of them are new patents, on most ingenious principles, to which, we we shall refer hereafter. In addition : to these she will also carry, suspended aft of her paddle-boxes, two small screw steamers 100 feet i long each and of between 90 and 70 tons burden. These will, of course, be raised and lowered by small auxiliary engines, several of which will be fixed on board for working pumps, hoisting sails, weighing anchors, &c. Both the little screws Tvill be kept in all respects perfectly equipped ■■ for sea and used for embarking and landing the passengers with all their luggage, &c, along- ■ side the wharf or pier, whichever it may happen to be. This will be onerous service, for the Great Eastern is fitted-to accomodate 800 firstclass passengers, 2,000 second class, and 1,200 third class,—in all 4,000 passengers; or, if employed in the transport of troops, she can carry, it is said, 10,000 men. She will be ready for launching early in August next, and able to take her first trial trip to America and back about the middle of that month. She is expected to realize a speed ; of at least 20 miles an hour, or to accomplish the voyage from England to Australia (between which countries she is to run) in 30 days. Reckoning the cost at so much per ton it is said to be one of the cheapest vessels yet constructed. The arrangements for the launching— or perhaps we should rather say for her being lowered gradually down an inclined plane into the river—are quite as extraordinary and as noteworthy as the vessel itself. At present we cannot enter into the details of the plan,which as been entirely devised by the eminent engineer to whom the whole merit of originating the first great idea of the vessel is dae— Mr. Brunei. We may mention, however, that the launch will be by no means a slapdash affair into the "native element, " but a tedious operation which will very probably occupy two or •iihree days. On these points, however, and on -some others'of equal interest, we shall give our fuller information as the great ship progresses towards completion.