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30 MARINE REVIEW AND MARINE' RECORD. city, and the river became literally dotted all. over with boats conveying the curious to: and from the stranger. There seemed to be a universal voice in congratulation and every visage was illuminated with delight. A tacit conviction seemed to per- vade every bosom that a most doubtful problem had been most satisfactorily solved. Visions of future advantage to science, to commerce, to moral philosophy began to float before the 'mind's eye', -Curiosity to travel through the old country, and to in- spect ancient institutions, began to stimulate the inquiring. While all this was going on, suddenly there was seen over Gover- nor's island a dense black cloud of smoke spreading itself up- ward, and betokening another arrival. On it came with great rapidity, and about three o'clock in the afternoon its cause was made fully manifest to the accumulated multitudes at the Bat- tery. It was the steamship Great Western, of about 1,600 tons burden (probably net tonnage) under the command of Lieut. Hoskins, R. N. She had left Bristol on the 8th inst., and on the 23rd was making her triumphant entry into the port of New York. 'This immense moving mass was propelled at a rapid rate through the waters of the Bay. She passed swiftly and gracefully round the Sirius, exchanging salutes with her, and then proceeded to her destined anchorage in the East river. If the public mind was stimulated by the arrival of the Sirius, is became almost: intoxicated with delight upon view of the superb Great Western. 'The latter vessel was only fourteen clear days out, and neither vessel had sustained a damage worth mentioning, although both vessels had encountered very heavy weather. The Great Western averaged 18614 miles per day, and the Sirius 130%-miles. 'The Great Western averaged 734 miles per hour; the Sirius barely averaged 5% miles per hour." 'Such was the first voyage made across the Atlantic by these two early steamships, and there is something of the true philoso- phy of history to be found in the interest which their advent created. It is worthy of passing note to learn what ultimately became of: these vessels. The Sirius, not proving staunch enough for the Atlantic service, was sent to open steamer com: munication between London and St. Petersburg (Russia), in which trade she was for several years successfully employed. The great Western made regular trips from Bristol to New York till the year 1847, when she was sold to the Royal Mail Co. and ran as one of their best ships till 1857, in which year she was -broken up as being obsolete, and unable profitably to compete -with the new class of steamers then building. The success of these two vessels may be said to have com- pletely established steam as a condition of the transatlantic voyage of the future. In October 1838, Sir John Tobin a mer- chant cf Liverpool, seeing the importance of the intercourse so y rapidly increasing between the old and the new worlds, despatch- "ea on his own account a steamer to New York. She was built at. Liverpool and was named after that city. She made the voyage to the United States in sixteen and a half days. It was now clearly proved that the service could be performed not merely with profit to those who engaged in it, but with a regu- larity of speed with which the finest class of sailing vessels could not be expected to compete. "If any doubts still existed on these important points, the second voyage of the Great Western set them at rest, she having on this occasion accomplished the oe passage in fourteen days and sixteen hours, bringing with her the advices of the fastest American sailing ships which had sailed from New York long before her, and thus proving the necessity of having the mails conveyed by steamers.'--(Lind- say, History of Merchant Shipping). EARLY MAIL CONTRACTS. As early as 1838 the British government, being satisfied of the superiority of steamers over sailing ships, issued advertise- ments inviting tenders for the conveyance of the American mails by the former class of vessels. The owners of the Great West- 'ern having great confidence in the reputation of that ship, ap- plied for the contract, but, not a little to their chagrin it was _ awarded to Mr. Samuel Cunrad who, as far back as 1830, had pro- posed the establishment of a steam mail service across the At- lantic. The terms of the original contract were that for #£55,- 000 per annum, Messrs. Cunard, Burns & Maclver should pro- vide three ships, and make two voyages each month between Liverpool and the United States, leaving England at certain periods, but son afterwards it was considered more expedient to name fixed dates of departure on both sides of the ocean. Sub- sequently another ship was required to be added to the service, and the amount of the payment was increased to £81,000 per -annum. The steam mail service betwen Liverpool, Halifax and Boston was regularly established in 1840, the first ship 'en- pause in it being the Britannia, the pioneer ship of the Cunard -. line. A good idea of what these early steamships were may be obtained from Dickens' account of this same Britannia, in which ~ he crossed to the United States on his first visit in 1842, In one of his letters describing a storm by which the ship was over- taken, he unconsciously reflects the wondering regard with which _.the world still viewed the triumphant achievements of the marine engine. "For two or three hours," he wrote, "we gave it up as - a lost thing. This was not the exaggerated apprehension of 1 landsman merely. The head engineer, who had been in one or the other of the Cunard vessels since they began running, had never seen such stress of weather; and I afterwards heard Capt. [Sept, II, Hewitt say that nothing but .a steamer, and one of great strength, could have kept her cotirse and stood it Outs A sailing-vessel must have beaten off, and driven where she would, while through all the fury of that gale they actually made 54 miles headlong through the tempest, straight on end, not varying their track in the least." What would the captain of one of the greyhounds of to-day think of such a feat? And, more interesting speculation still what must Charles Dickens himself have thought of the performances he lived to witness as against this astonishing accomplishment on the part of the old Britannia? There is a tendency to ridicule the early steamers as they appear In pictures, with their great boxes for the side-wheels, their tall, thin smoke stacks and their heavily-rigged masts, which look as though their engines were regarded as quite auxiliary to their sail- power, and by no means to be relied upon, contrasted with some of the leviathans of the present time, the steamers of half a century ago are no longer calculated to please the beholder, but it is nevertheless true that some very fine vessels were built while the marine engine was still in its infancy. In 1830, the following account of a new steamship appeared in an English publication, the Railway Magazine. "An immense steamer, upwards of 200 feet long, was lately launched at Bristol for plying between England and America; but the one now building at Carling & Co.'s Limehouse, for the American Steam Navigation Co. surpasses anything of the kind hitherto made. She is to be named after our Queen, the Victoria, will cost from £80,000 to £100,000, has about 150 men now employed daily upon her and is expected to be finished in November next. The extreme length is about 253 ft., but she is 237 ft. between the perpendiculars, 40% ft. beam between the paddle-boxes, and 27 ft. 1 in. deep from the floor to the inner side of the spar deck. The engines are two, of 250 H. P. each, with 6 ft. 4 in. cylinders, and 7 ft. stroke. They are to be fitted with Hall's patent condensers in addition to the common ones. She displaces at 16 ft. 2,740 tons of water. Her computed tonnage is 1,800.tons. At the water line every additional inch displaces 184 tons. The average speed is expected to be about 200 nauti- cal miles per day and consumption of coal about 30 tons. The best Welsh coal is to be used. It is calculated she will make the outward passage to New York in eighteen days, and the homeward in twelve, consuming 540 tons of coal out and 360 home. Expectation is on tiptoe for the first voyage of this gigantic steamer alongside of which other steamers look like fishing boats." The steamers of the East India Co. had made trips to the Cape of Good Hope nearly two years before the Sirius and Great Western sailed upon their first voyage. The next route upon which regular steam navigation was opened, following upon that of the North Atlantic passage, was between Great Britain and India. The Nautical Magazine (English) for 1836, contains the original prospectus issued by a syndicate of London merchants upon the subject of steam com- munication with the East Indies. As an illustration of the almost incredible: strides that have been made in ocean travel since that period, this piece of literature is most instructive. The circular opens by announcing that it is proposed to establish steam-traffiic with India, extending, perhaps, even to Australia. It points out in sanguine terms how those distant parts of the world, by the contemplated arrangement, "will be reached at the outset in the short period of seventy-three days; and,, when ex- perience is obtained this time will in all probability be reduced by one-third. If two days be allowed for stuppages at stations, not averaging more than 1,000 miles apart throughout the line (route), the whole time for passing between the extreme points will only be sixty days, but a relay of vessels will follow, if the undertaking be matured, in which case twenty-four hours will be ample time at the depots, and a communication may be expected to be established and kept up throughout the year between Eng- land and Australia in fifty days. (The Australian city, Mel- borne, is 11,267 miles from London.) It is reasonably expected that Bombay. will be reached in forty-eight days, Madras in fifty-five, Calcutta in fifty-nine, etc..* * *" Letters now arrive at Bombay seventeen days after leaving England and at Calcutta three days later.) _ The writer in the Nautical Magazine gravely comments upon this scheme as quite plausible. He is indeed inclined to be anticipatory. Instead of seventy-three days to Australia, he 1s of opinion that the voyage may ultimately be accomplished in fifty, and that the table of time generally may be reduced by about one-third throughout; although to qualify his somewhat daring speculations, he admits that it is well to base the calcula- tions on the safe side. But the East India Co. asserted its pre- rogatives and put a stop to the scheme of the New Bengal Steamship Ca,, as the undertaking was to have been called. This raised a strong feeling of dissatisfaction, and the court of direc- tors of the former concern was obliged to provide a substitute in lieu of the new undertaking which they had refused to sanction. Their own ships were quite unequal to the requirements of prompt despatch" which even then were beginning to agitate the minds of the somewhat conservative English people. STEAM COMMUNICATION BETWERN ENGLAND AND INDIA. The possibility of establishing steam communication be- tween England and India had been clearly demonstrated as early as the year 1825, when the Enterprise 480 tons and 120 H.P.