THE GREAT EASTERN STEAMSHIP.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4565, 6 November 1875, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE GREAT EASTERN STEAMSHIP.

Writing in Zand and Water respecting the hull of the Great Eastern steamship, Mr. Henry Lee says :—" So far as barnacles were concerned, I had been sent as completely on a wild-goose chase as if I had gone in quest of the ' barnacle geese,' of which the said cirripedes were once supposed to be the embryonic form. There were certainly traces of a few barnacles (Balanus tintinnabulum apparently) near the level of the water-line, especially about tho sternpost and between it and the rudder, and the latter itself, as well as the propelling screw, was covered with the common acorn barnacles or ' clutters ;' but all the rest of the hull usually submerged was covered with an enormous multitude of mussels, clustered together in one dense and continuous deposit oxtendiug over a surface of 52,000 square feet of iron plates, and in some parts six inches thick. Mr. Beckwith had made a calculation, which I am able to verify with him, of tho total weight of the mussels thus accumulated. It was found by careful experiment that the average weight of those on each square foot was from l'Jlbs. to lyibs. ; therefore the vessel was encumbered with not less than three hundred tons of living marine animals adhering to her—mussels enough, in fact, to load with full cargoes two ordinary collier brigs ! Although the mere weight of this mass would not, perhaps, much affect the buoyancy of a vessel of 25,000 tons burthen, it will be readily understood that the friction of such a rough, jagged incrustation passing through the water would materially diminish her speed. As these troublesome adherents were scraped off with shovels by workmen employed under contract to remove them, they were carried away by cartloads and boatloads, and buried along the shore of the haven. In some localities they would have been heartily welcomed bv the fishermen as valuable bait. So completely had the mussels taken possession of every inch of plate surface, to the exclusion of almost every other living thing, that there was nothing fit'for exhibition

in aquarium but some plumose anemones {Actinoloba dianthus) of the three varieties—orange, white, and olive—fine groups of which had attached themselves in some places to the outer layer of the crowded bivalves. These were, I found, the 'barnacles' of which I had been told."