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story of the locomotive, the steamship, bridge building, tunnel making,
by F. M. Holmes

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Title: Engineers and their triumphs: the story of the locomotive, the
       steamship, bridge building, tunnel making

Author: F. M. Holmes

Release Date: October 1, 2022 [eBook #69084]

Language: English

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             at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGINEERS AND THEIR TRIUMPHS:
THE STORY OF THE LOCOMOTIVE, THE STEAMSHIP, BRIDGE BUILDING, TUNNEL
MAKING ***



Transcriber’s Notes

Hyphenation has been standardised.

The Transcriber has constructed a ‘List of Illustrations’, as none was
supplied.

Page 132 — changed possibilites to =possibilities=




[Illustration: THE TOWER BRIDGE, LONDON, SHOWING THE BASCULES
RAISED.]




ENGINEERS

AND

THEIR TRIUMPHS:

_THE STORY OF THE LOCOMOTIVE—THE STEAMSHIP—BRIDGE BUILDING—TUNNEL
MAKING._

BY

F. M. HOLMES,

AUTHOR OF “FOUR HEROES OF INDIA,” ETC.

[Illustration]

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO

_Publishers of Evangelical Literature._




[Illustration]


PREFACE.


Without attempting to be exhaustive, this little book aims at
describing in a purely popular and non-technical manner some of
the great achievements of engineers, more particularly during the
nineteenth century.

The four departments chosen have been selected not in pursuance of any
comprehensive plan, but because they present some of the more striking
features of constructional effort. The term Engineering, however,
includes the design and supervision of numerous works, such as roads
and canals, docks and break-waters, machinery and mining, as well as
steam-engines and steamships, bridges and tunnels.

Information, in certain cases, has been gained at first-hand, and I
have to acknowledge the courtesy of the managers of the Cunard and
White Star Steamship Companies, Messrs. Maudslay, Sons & Field, and
others, in supplying various particulars.

The narrative concerning Henry Bell and the steamship _Comet_, and of
his connection with Fulton, is chiefly based on a letter from Bell
himself in the _Caledonian Mercury_ in 1816.

The statement that Mr. Macgregor Laird was so largely instrumental in
founding the British and American Steam Navigation Company is made on
the authority of his daughter, Miss Eleanor Bristow Laird. An article
on “The Genesis of the Steamship,” which I wrote in the _Gentleman’s
Magazine_, brought a letter from that lady in which she declares
that her father was the prime mover in founding the Company. He had
had experience, in the Niger Expedition of 1832-33, of the behaviour
of steamships both at sea and in the river, and from the date of
his return to England she asserts he advocated the establishment of
steam communication between England and America, against the active
opposition of Dr. Lardner and others. “Macgregor Laird’s claim to the
foremost place amongst all those (not excepting Brunel) who worked for
the same object,” writes Miss Laird, “was clearly shown in a letter
from the late Mr. Archibald Hamilton of 17 St. Helen’s Place, E.C., to
the editor of the _Shipping and Mercantile Gazette_, in which paper it
was published on 15th May, 1873.”

It is not a little curious to note how, in many of these great
undertakings, several minds seem to have been working to the same end
at about the same time. It was so with George Stephenson and others
with regard to the locomotive, with Miller and Symington, Bell and
Fulton, with regard to the steamship, with Laird and Brunel as regards
transatlantic steam navigation, with Robert Stephenson and William
Fairbairn as regards the tubular bridge.

This volume does not seek to be the special advocate of any, or to
enter into any minute details, but simply endeavours to gather up the
more salient features and weave them into a connected and popular
narrative.

F. M. HOLMES.




[Illustration]


CONTENTS.


THE STORY OF THE LOCOMOTIVE.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. FIRST STEPS, 9

II. GLANCING BACKWARDS AND STRUGGLING FORWARDS, 19

III. FIFTEEN MILES AN HOUR, 28

IV. A MARVEL OF MECHANISM, 36

V. A MILE A MINUTE, 46


THE STORY OF THE STEAMSHIP.

I. THE “COMET” APPEARS, 53

II. TO THE NARROW SEAS, 60

III. ON THE OPEN OCEAN, 68

IV. THE OCEAN RACE, 74

V. BEFORE THE FURNACE, 85


FAMOUS BRIDGES AND THEIR BUILDERS.

I. “THE BRIDGE BY THE EARTHEN HOUSE,” 101

II. A NEW IDEA—THE BRITANNIA TUBULAR, 108

III. LATTICE AND SUSPENSION BRIDGES, 119

IV. THE GREATEST BRIDGE IN THE WORLD, 125

V. THE TOWER BRIDGE, 133


REMARKABLE TUNNELS AND THEIR CONSTRUCTION.

I. HOW BRUNEL MADE A BORING-SHIELD, 137

II. UNDER THE RIVER, 141

III. THROUGH THE ALPS, 147

IV. UNDER WATER AGAIN, 153

[Illustration]


List of Illustrations

The Tower Bridge, London, showing the bascules raised. iii

George Stephenson. 11

“Puffing Billy,” the oldest locomotive engine in existence. 13

James Watt. 21

Edward Pease. 27

The compound locomotive “Greater Britain.” 41

Back and front view of the locomotive “Greater Britain.” 44

The “Flying Dutchman.” 50

Bell’s “Comet.” 55

Robert Fulton. 59

The ice-bound “Britannia” at Boston. 77

Isambard Kingdom Brunel. 80

The “Great Eastern.” 83

High and low pressure cylinders of the “Campania’s” engines. 87

The “Campania.” 89

Stoke Hole. 93

Promenade deck of the “Paris.” 99

Pontypridd Bridge. 102

The Post Bridge, Dartmoor. 105

Robert Stephenson. 111

The Britannia Tubular Bridge. 115

Victoria Tubular Bridge, Montreal. 117

The Clifton Bridge. 122

The Brooklyn Bridge. 123

The Forth Bridge. 129

The Thames Tunnel. 143

Boring machine used for the Mont Cenis Tunnel. 149

The entrance to the air-lock. 155

The boring machine used in the preliminary construction of the English
Channel Tunnel. 159


[Illustration]


ENGINEERS AND THEIR TRIUMPHS.




THE STORY OF THE LOCOMOTIVE.




CHAPTER I.

FIRST STEPS.


“I think I could make a better engine than that.”

“Do you? Well, some’ing’s wanted; hauling coal by horses is very
expensive.”

“Ay, it is, and I think an engine could do it better.”

“Mr. Blackett’s second engine burst all to pieces; d’ye mind that?”

“How came that about?”

“Tommy Waters, who put it together, could not make it go, so he got
a bit fractious and said she should move. He did some’ing to the
safety-valve and she did begin to work, but then she burst all to
pieces.”

“Ay, ay, but this one is an improvement.”

“It had need be. Even the third was a perfect plague.”

“What! you mean Mr. Blackett’s third engine?”

“Ay. It used to draw eight or nine truck loads at about a mile an hour,
or a little less; but it often got cranky and stood still.”

“Stood still!”

“Ay; we thought she would never stick to the road, so we had a cogged
wheel to work into a rack-work rail laid along the track, and somehow
she was always getting off the rack-rail.”

“And now you find that the engine is heavy enough herself to grip the
rail.”

“Ay, that was Will Hedley’s notion; he’s a viewer at the colliery. And
it is a great improvement. Why, that third engine, I say, was a perfect
nuisance. Chaps used to sing out to the driver: ‘How do you get on?’”

“‘Get on,’ sez he, ‘I don’t get on; I on’y get off!’”

“It was always goin’ wrong, and horses was always having to be got out
to drag it along.”

“How did Hedley find out that a rack-rail was not needful?”

“Well, he had a framework put upon wheels and worked by windlasses
which were geared to the wheels. Men were put to work these windlasses
which set the wheels going; and, lo and behold, she moved! The wheels,
though smooth, kept to the rails, though they were smooth also, and
the framework went along without slipping. ‘Crikey!’ says Hedley, ‘no
cogged wheels, no chains, no legs for me! We can do without ’em all.
Smooth wheels will grip smooth rails.’ And he proved it too by several
experiments.”

“Then Mr. Blackett had this engine built?”

“Ay, and it be, as you say, a great improvement. But that steam blowing
off there, after it have done its work, frights the horses on the Wylam
Road ter’ble, and makes it a perfect nuisance.”

“Has nothing been done to alter it?”

“Mr. Blackett has given orders to stop the engine when any horses comes
along, and the men don’t like that because it loses time. He thinks he
is going to let the steam escape gradual like, by blowing it off into
a cask first.”

“Umph! very wasteful.”

“Oh, ay; it be wasteful; and many a one about here sez of Mr. Blackett
that a fool and his money are soon parted.”

“No,” said the first speaker, shaking his head thoughtfully, “Mr.
Blackett is no fool. But I think I could build a better engine than
that.”

[Illustration: GEORGE STEPHENSON.]

The tone in which these words were uttered was not boastful, but quiet
and thoughtful.

“You are Geordie Stephenson, the engine-wright of the Killingworth
Collieries, ’beant you?”

“Ay; and we have to haul coal some miles to the Tyne where it can be
shipped. So you do away with all rack-work rails and all cogged wheels,
do you?”

“Ay, ay, Geordie, that’s so—smooth wheels on smooth rails.”

This conversation, imaginary though to some extent it be, yet embodies
some important facts. Jonathan Foster, Mr. Blackett’s engine-wright,
informed Mr. Samuel Smiles, who mentions the circumstance in his “Lives
of the Engineers,” that George Stephenson “declared his conviction
that a much more effective engine might be made, that should work more
steadily and draw the load more effectively.”

Geordie had studied the steam-engine most diligently. Born at
Wylam—some eight miles distant from Newcastle, about thirty years
previously—he had become a fireman of a steam-engine and had been wont
to take it to pieces in his leisure. He was now thinking over the
subject of building a locomotive engine, and he decided to see what
had already been accomplished. He would profit by the failures and
successes of others. So he went over to Wylam to see Mr. Blackett’s
engines, and to Coxlodge Colliery to see Mr. Blenkinsop’s from Leeds;
and here again it is said, that after watching the machine haul
sixteen locomotive waggons at a speed of about three miles an hour, he
expressed the opinion that “he thought he could make a better engine
than that, to go upon legs.”

A man named Brunton did actually take out a patent in 1813 for doing
this. The legs were to work alternately, like a living creature’s.
The idea which seems to have troubled the early inventors of the
locomotive, was that smooth wheels would not grip smooth rails to haul
along a load. And it was Blenkinsop of Leeds who took out a patent in
1811 for a rack-work rail into which a cog-wheel from his engine should
work.

Thus William Hedley’s idea of trusting to the weight of the engine to
grip the rails, and abolishing all the toothed wheels and legs and
rack-work for this purpose on a fairly level rail, was the first great
step toward making the locomotive a practicable success.

[Illustration: “PUFFING BILLY,” THE OLDEST LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE IN
EXISTENCE.

(_At present in South Kensington Museum._)]

The idea that Stephenson invented the locomotive is a mistake. But
just as James Watt improved the crude steam pumps and engines he found
in existence, so George Stephenson of immortal memory developed and
made practicable the locomotive. For, in spite of Hedley’s discovery or
invention, all locomotives were partial failures until Stephenson took
the matter in hand.

Nevertheless, William Hedley’s “Puffing Billy” must be regarded as one
of the first practicable railway engines ever built. It is still to be
seen in the South Kensington Museum, London. Patented in 1813, it began
regular work at Wylam in that year, and continued in use until 1872. It
was probably this engine which Stephenson saw when he said to Jonathan
Foster that he could make a better, and it was no doubt the first to
work by smooth wheels on smooth rails. Altogether it has been looked
upon as the “father” of the enormous number of locomotives which have
followed.

Mr. Blackett was a friend of Richard Trevithick; and among the various
inventors and improvers of the locomotive engine Richard Trevithick, a
tin-miner in Cornwall, must have a high place.

Trevithick was a pupil of Murdock, who was assistant of James Watt.
Murdock had made a model successfully of a locomotive engine at
Redruth. Others also had attempted the same thing. Savery had suggested
something of the kind; Cugnot, a French engineer, built one in Paris
about 1763; Oliver Evans, an American, made a steam carriage in 1772;
William Symington, who did so much for the steamboat, constructed
a model of one in 1784. So that many minds had been at work on the
problem.

But Richard Trevithick was really the first Englishman who used a
steam-engine on a railway. He had not much money and he persuaded his
cousin, Andrew Vivian, to join him in the enterprise. In 1802 they took
out a patent for a steam-engine to propel carriages.

But before this he had made a locomotive to travel along roads, and on
Christmas Eve, 1801, the wonderful sight could have been seen of this
machine carrying passengers for the first time. It is indeed believed
to have been the first occasion on which passengers were conveyed by
the agency of steam—the pioneer indeed of a mighty traffic.

The machine was taken to London and exhibited in certain streets, and
at length, in 1808, it was shown on ground where now, curiously enough,
the Euston Station of the London and North-Western Railway stands. Did
any prevision of the extraordinary success of the locomotive flash
across the engineer’s brain? Before the infant century had run its
course what wonderful developments of the strange new machine were to
be seen on that very spot!

Much interest was aroused by the exhibition of this machine, and Sir
Humphrey Davy, a fellow Cornishman, is reported to have written to a
friend—“I shall soon hope to hear that the roads of England are the
haunts of Captain Trevithick’s dragons—a characteristic name.”

His letter tends to show that the idea then was that the engine should
run on the public roads, and not on a specially prepared track like
a railway. Had not this idea been modified, and the principle of a
railroad adopted, it is hardly too much to say that the extraordinary
development of the locomotive would not have followed.

Trevithick’s first engine appears to have burst. At all events, in the
year 1803 or 1804, he built, and began to run, a locomotive on a horse
tramway in South Wales. It appears that he had been employed to build a
forge-engine here, and thus the opportunity was presented for the trial
of a machine to haul along minerals. This, it is believed, was the
first railway locomotive, and its builder was Richard Trevithick.

The trial, however, was not very successful. Trevithick’s engine was
too heavy for the tramway on which it ran, and the proprietors were
not prepared to put down a stronger road. Furthermore, it once alarmed
the good folk, unused then to railway accidents, by actually running
off its rail, though only travelling at about four or five miles an
hour. It had to be ignominiously brought home by horses. That settled
the matter. It became a pumping engine, and as such answered very well.

In this locomotive, however, it should be noted Trevithick employed a
device which, a quarter of a century later, Stephenson made so valuable
that we might call it the very life-blood of the Locomotive. We mean
the device of turning the waste steam into the funnel (after it has
done its work by driving the piston), and thus forcing a furnace
draught and increasing the fire. Stephenson, however, sent the steam
through a small nozzled pipe which made of it a veritable steam-blast,
while Trevithick, apparently, simply discharged the steam into the
chimney.

Disgusted it would seem by the failure, the inventor turned his
attention to other things. Trevithick appears to have lingered on the
very brink of success, and then turned aside. Another effort and he
might have burst the barrier. But it was not to be; though if any one
man deserve the title, Inventor of the Locomotive, that man is the
Cornish genius Trevithick. Readers who may desire fuller information
of Trevithick and his inventions will find it in his “Life” by Francis
Trevithick, C.E., published in 1872.

It must be borne in mind that Stephenson found the imaginary hindrance
that smooth wheels would not grip smooth rails, cleared away for him
by Hedley’s experiment, whereas Trevithick had to contend against this
difficulty. He strove to conquer it by roughing the circumference of
his wheels by projecting bolts, so that they might grip in that way.
That is, his patent provided for it, if he did not actually carry out
the plan.

It is very significant that this imaginary fear should have hindered
the development of the locomotive. The idea seems to have prevailed
that, no matter how powerful the engine, it could not haul along very
heavy loads unless special provision were made for its “bite” or grip
of the rails. Another difficulty with which Trevithick had to contend
was one of cost. It is said that one of his experiments failed in
London for that reason. This was apparently the locomotive for roads,
as distinct from the locomotive for rails. A machine may be an academic
triumph, but the question of cost must be met if the machine is to
become a commercial and industrial success.

Mr. Blenkinsop of Leeds then took out his patent in 1811 for a
rack-work rail and cogged wheel; but before this Mr. Blackett of Wylam
had obtained a plan of Trevithick’s engine and had one constructed.
He had met Trevithick at London, and it was as early as 1804 that
he obtained the plan. The engines, therefore, of Mr. Blackett which
Stephenson saw, came, so to speak, in direct line from Trevithick,
except that Mr. Blackett’s second engine was a combination of
Blenkinsop’s and Trevithick’s.

Some progress was made, but when on that memorable day George
Stephenson, the engine-wright of Killingworth, said, “I think I could
build a better engine than that,” no very effective or economical
working locomotive was in existence.

Back therefore went George Stephenson to his home. He had seen what
others had done, and with his knowledge of machinery and his love for
engine work he would now try what he could do.

Would he succeed?




CHAPTER II.

GLANCING BACKWARDS AND STRUGGLING FORWARDS.


“My lord, will you spend the money to build a Travelling Engine?”

“Why? what would it do?”

“Haul coals to the Tyne, my lord. The present system of hauling by
horses is very costly.”

“It is. But how would you manage it by a Travelling Engine?” Thereupon
George Stephenson the engine-wright proceeded to explain.

In some such manner as this we can imagine that Stephenson opened up
the subject to Lord Ravensworth, the chief partner in the Killingworth
Colliery; and he won his lordship over.

Stephenson had already improved the colliery engines, and Lord
Ravensworth had formed a high opinion of his abilities. So after
consideration he gave the required consent.

Now, let us endeavour to imagine the position. The steam engine, of
which the locomotive is one form, had been invented years before. The
Marquis of Worcester made something of a steam engine which apparently
was working at Vauxhall, South-west London, in 1656. It is said that he
raised water forty feet, and by this we may infer that his apparatus
was a steam-pump. He describes it in his work “Century of Inventions,”
about 1655, and he is generally accredited with being the inventor of
the steam engine. It was, however, a very primitive affair, the boiler
being the same vessel as that in which the steam accomplished its work.

Captain Savery took the next step. He was the first to obtain a patent
for applying steam power to machinery. This was in 1698, and he used
a boiler distinct from the vessel where the steam was to exert its
power. Savery’s engines appear to have been used to drain mines.

His engines acted in this way—the steam was condensed in a vessel and
produced a vacuum which raised the water; then the steam pressing upon
it raised it further in another receptacle.

An obvious improvement was the introduction of the piston. This was
Papin’s idea, and he used it first in 1690. Six years later an engine
was constructed by Savery, Newcomen (a Devonshire man), and Cawley,
in which the “beam” was introduced, and also the ideas of a distinct
boiler separate from a cylinder in which worked a piston. This machine
was in operation for about seventy years. The beam worked on an axle
in its centre—something like a child’s “see-saw,” and one end being
attached to the piston moving in the cylinder, it was worked up and
down, the other end of the beam being fastened to the pump-rod, which
was thus alternately raised and depressed.

The upward movement of the piston having been effected by a rush of
steam from the boiler upon its head, the steam was cut off and cold
water run in upon it from a cistern. The steam was thus condensed by
the water and a vacuum caused, and the piston was pressed down by the
weight of the atmosphere—of course dragging down its end of the beam,
and raising the pump-rod. The steam was then turned on again and pushed
up the piston, and consequently the end of the beam also. Thus the
engine continued to work, the turning of the cocks to admit steam and
water being performed by an attendant. The engine was, however, made
self-acting in this respect, and Smeaton improved this form of engine
greatly. The beam is still used in engines for pumping.

Nevertheless, improved though it became, it was still clumsy and almost
impracticable. It was the genius of James Watt which changed it from a
slow, awkward, cumbrous affair into a most powerful, practicable, and
useful machine.

His great improvements briefly were these: he condensed the steam in
a separate vessel from the cylinder, and thus avoided cooling it and
the consequent loss of steam power; secondly, he used the steam to
push back the piston as well as to push it forward (this is called the
“double-acting engine,” and is now always used); thirdly, he introduced
the principle of using the steam expansively, causing economy in
working; and fourthly, he enabled a change to be made of the up and
down motion of the piston into a circular motion by the introduction of
the crank.

[Illustration: JAMES WATT.]

The use of the steam expansively is to stop its rush to the cylinder
when the piston has only partially accomplished its stroke, leaving the
remainder of the stroke to be driven by the expansion of the steam.
In early engines the steam was admitted by conical valves, worked by a
rod from the beam. Murdock, we may add in parenthesis, is believed to
have invented the slide-valve which came into use as locomotives were
introduced, and of which there are now numerous forms. The valve is
usually worked by an “eccentric” rod on the shaft of the engine.

Watt was the author of many other inventions and improvements of the
steam engine. Indeed, although Savery and Newcomen and others are
entitled to great praise, it was Watt who gave it life, so to speak,
and made it, in principle and essence, very much that which we now
possess. There have, indeed, been improvements as to the boiler, as to
expansive working, and in various details, since his day; but, apart
from the distinctive forms of the locomotive and the marine engine, the
machine as a whole is in principle much as Watt left it.

The centre of all things in a steam engine is usually the cylinder.
Here the piston is moved backward and forward, and thence gives motion
as required to other parts of the machine.

The cylinder is in fact an air-tight, round box, fitted with a
close-fitting, round plate of metal, to which is fixed the piston-rod.
Now, it must be obvious that if the steam be admitted at one end of the
cylinder it will, as it rushes in, push the metal plate and the piston
outward, and if this steam be cut off, and the steam admitted to the
other end of the cylinder, it will push the metal plate and piston back
again.

But what is to be done with the steam after it has accomplished
its work? It may be permitted to spurt out into the air, or into a
separate vessel, where it may be condensed. In the locomotive, under
Stephenson’s able handling, this escape of steam was created into a
steam-blast in the chimney to stimulate the fire. In compound and
triple-expansion engines the steam is used—or expanded, it is called—in
two or three cylinders respectively. When steam is condensed, it may
be returned to the boiler as water.

It was the repairing of a Newcomen engine that seems to have started
Watt on his inventions and improvements of the steam engine. He was
then a mathematical instrument maker at Glasgow. As a boy he had
suffered from poor health, but had been very observant and studious;
and it is said that his aunt chided him on one occasion for wasting
time in playing with her tea-kettle. He would watch the steam jetting
from its spout, and would count the water-drops into which the steam
would condense when he held a cup over the white cloud.

Delicate though he was in health, he studied much, and came, indeed,
to make many other articles besides mathematical instruments. When,
therefore, the Newcomen engine needed repair, it was not unnatural
that it should be brought to him. It appears to have been a working
model used at Glasgow University. He soon repaired the machine; but,
in examining it, he became possessed with the idea that it was very
defective, and he pondered long over the problem—How it might be
improved. What was wanting in it? How could the steam be condensed
without cooling the cylinder?

Suddenly, one day, so the story goes, the idea struck him, when
loitering across the common with bent brows, that if steam were
elastic, it would spurt into any vessel empty of air. Impatiently,
he hastened home to try the experiment. He connected the cylinder of
an engine with a separate vessel, in which the air was exhausted,
and found that his idea was correct; the steam did rush into it.
Consequently the steam could be condensed in a separate vessel, and
the heat of the cylinder maintained and the loss of power prevented.
This invention seems simple enough; yet it increased the power of an
engine threefold, and is at the root of Watt’s fame. We must remember
that the inventions which in process of time may appear the simplest
and the most commonplace, may be the most difficult to originate. And
it may fairly be urged—If it were so very simple, and so very obvious,
why was it not invented before? The supposition is that in those days
it was not so simple. It is possible that the great elasticity of steam
was not sufficiently understood. In any case, the discovery and its
application are regarded as his greatest invention.

Yet ten years elapsed before he constructed a real working steam
engine, and so great we may suppose were the difficulties he
encountered, including poorness of health, that once he is reported
to have exclaimed: “Of all things in the world, there is nothing so
foolish as inventing.”

But a brilliant triumph succeeded. Eventually Watt became partner
with Mr. Matthew Boulton, and the firm of Boulton & Watt manufactured
the engine at Soho Ironworks, Birmingham. Mining proprietors soon
discovered the value of the new machine, and Newcomen’s engine was
superseded for pumping.

Watt continued to improve the machine, and together with Boulton also
greatly improved the workmanship of constructing engines and machinery.
In a patent taken out in 1784, he “described a steam locomotive”; but
for some reason he did not prosecute the idea. It is possible that the
notion of building a special road for it to run upon did not occur to
him, or appear very practicable.

His work was done, and it was a great work; but it was left for others
to develop the steam engine into forms for hauling carriages on land or
propelling ships upon the sea. Trevithick, Stephenson, and others did
the one; Symington, Bell, and others did the second. Watt died in 1819,
and though so delicate in youth, he lived to his eighty-fourth year.

The steam engine, therefore, as Watt left it, was practically as
Stephenson came to know it. He would be acquainted with it chiefly as
a pumping machine. But he saw what others had done to adopt it as a
locomotive, and he now set to work.

Stephenson’s first engine did not differ very materially from some of
those which had preceded it. He was, so to speak, feeling his way. The
machine had a round, wrought-iron boiler, eight feet long, with two
upright cylinders placed on the top of it. At the end of the pistons
from the cylinders were cross-rods connected with cogged wheels below
by other rods. These cogged wheels gave motion to the wheels running
on the rails by cogs not very far from the axles. Stephenson abandoned
the cogged rail, and adopted smooth wheels and smooth rails; but he did
not connect the driving-wheel direct with the piston, the intervening
cogged wheels being thought necessary to unite the power of the two
cylinders.

In adopting the principle of smooth wheels on smooth rails, it is said
that Stephenson proved by experiment that the arrangement would work
satisfactorily. Mr. Smiles writes that Robert Stephenson informed him,
“That his father caused a number of workmen to mount upon the wheels
of a waggon moderately loaded, and throw their entire weight upon the
spokes on one side, when he found that the waggon could thus be easily
propelled forward without the wheels slipping. This, together with
other experiments, satisfied him of the expediency of adopting smooth
wheels on his engine, and it was so finished accordingly.” Thus it may
be said that this obstacle—imaginary though it largely proved to be—was
cleared away from Stephenson’s first engine.

Ten months were occupied in building the machine, and at last came the
day of its trial. This was the 25th of July, 1814. Would it work?

Jolting and jerking along, it did work, hauling eight carriages at a
speed of about four or six miles an hour—as fast as a brisk man could
walk. Then came the question—Would it prove more economical than
horse-power?

Calculations therefore were made, and after a time it was found that
“Blucher” as the engine was called, though we believe its real name was
“My Lord,” was about as expensive as horse-power.

The locomotive needed something more, some magic touch to render it
less clumsy and more effective. What was it?

Then came the first great practicable improvement after the smooth
wheels on smooth rails. It was the steam-blast in the funnel, by which
the draught in the furnace was greatly increased. Indeed, the faster
the engine ran the more furiously the fire would burn, the more rapid
would be the production of steam, and the greater the power of the
engine.

At first Stephenson had allowed his waste steam from the cylinders
to blow off into the air. So great was the nuisance caused by this
arrangement that a law-suit was threatened if it were not abated.

What was to be done with that troublesome waste steam? Now, whether
Stephenson originated the idea or adapted what Trevithick had done,
we cannot say, but at all events he achieved the object, wherever he
gained the idea. He turned his exhaust steam through a pipe into the
funnel, and at a stroke increased the power of his engine two-fold.

But that expedient was not alone. Stephenson had watched the working of
“Blucher” to some purpose, and he decided to build another engine with
improvements.

The cumbersome cog-wheels must go; they complicated the machine
terribly, and prevented its practicability. Therefore in his second
engine he introduced direct connection between the pistons and the
wheels. There were a couple of upright cylinders as before, with
cross-rods attached to the piston-ends, and connecting rods from the
end of each cross-rod, reaching down to the wheels. But to overcome the
difficulty of one wheel being at some time higher than the other on
the poorly constructed railway of that period, a joint was introduced
in the cross-rod, so that if, perchance, the two wheels should not be
always on exactly the same level, no undue strain should be placed on
the cross-rod. Furthermore, the two pairs of wheels were combined first
by a chain, but afterwards by connecting rods. This may be called the
locomotive of 1815, the year in which the patent was taken out.

[Illustration: EDWARD PEASE.]

The engine accomplished its work more satisfactorily than before,
and was placed daily on the rails to haul coal from the mine to the
shipping point. But still its economy over horse-power was not so great
as to cause its wide adoption. And it was still little better, if
anything, than a mere coal haul.

Nevertheless Stephenson persevered. He was appointed engineer to the
Stockton and Darlington Railway—an enterprise largely promoted by Mr.
Edward Pease. It was opened on the 27th of September, 1825, and a local
paper writes as follows:—

“The signal being given, the engine started off with this immense
train of carriages, and such was its velocity, that in some parts the
speed was frequently 12 miles an hour; and at that time the number
of passengers was counted to be 450, which, together with the coals,
merchandise, and carriages, would amount to near 90 tons. The engine,
with its load, arrived at Darlington, a distance of 8¾ miles, in 65
minutes. The 6 waggons loaded with coals, intended for Darlington, were
then left behind; and obtaining a fresh supply of water, and arranging
the procession to accommodate a band of music and numerous passengers
from Darlington, the engine set off again, and arrived at Stockton in 3
hours and 7 minutes, including stoppages, the distance being nearly 12
miles.”

Stephenson became a partner in a business for constructing locomotives
at Newcastle, and three engines were made for the Stockton and
Darlington Railway. Nevertheless they appear to have been used chiefly
if not almost entirely for hauling coal; for the passenger-coach called
the _Experiment_ was hauled by a horse, and the journey occupied about
two hours.

The locomotive was not even yet a brilliant success over horse-power.
What was to be the next step?




CHAPTER III.

FIFTEEN MILES AN HOUR.


Five hundred pounds for the best locomotive engine!

So ran the announcement one day in the year 1829. The Liverpool and
Manchester Railway was nearly completed, but yet the directors had not
fully decided what power they would employ to haul along their waggons.

Horse-power had at length been finally abandoned, and numbers of
schemes had been poured in upon the managers. But the contest seemed
at last to resolve itself chiefly into a rivalry between fixed and
locomotive engines. Principally, if not entirely, swayed however by the
arguments of George Stephenson, the directors yielded to the hint of a
Mr. Harrison, and offered a £500 prize.

The engine was to satisfy certain conditions. Its weight was not to be
above six tons; it was to burn its own smoke, haul twenty tons at a
rate of ten miles an hour, be furnished with two safety valves, rest on
springs and on six wheels, while its steam pressure must not be more
than fifty lbs. to the square inch. The cost was not to exceed £550.

Stephenson, who was the engineer of the Railway, decided to compete. He
was now in a very different position from that which he occupied when
he built his second locomotive in 1815. His appointment as engineer to
the Stockton and Darlington Railway had greatly aided his advancement,
and when it was decided to build a railway between the two busy cities
of Manchester and Liverpool it was not unnatural that he should take
part in the undertaking.

The idea of constructing rail, or tram ways, was not new. Railways of
some kind were used in England about two hundred years before, that
is, about the beginning of the seventeenth century. Thus Roger North
writes:—“The manner of the carriage is by laying rails of timber from
the colliery to the river, exactly straight and parallel; and bulky
carts are made with four rollers fitting those rails, whereby the
carriage is so easy that one horse will draw down four or five chaldron
of coals, and is an immense benefit to the coal merchants.”

It is said that the word tramway is derived from tram, which was wont
to mean a beam of timber and also a waggon. In any case, such rough
ways were introduced in mining districts, for, as may be readily
believed, one horse could draw twenty times the load upon them that it
could on an ordinary road.

The old ways were first made of wood, then of wood faced with iron,
then altogether of iron.

Now, in making his railway between Liverpool and Manchester, Stephenson
had many difficulties to encounter. He decided that the line should
be as direct as possible. But to accomplish this, he would have to
pierce hills, build embankments, raise viaducts, and, hardest of all,
construct a firm causeway across a treacherous bog called Chat Moss.

“He will never do it,” said some of the most famous engineers of the
day. “It is impossible!”

Impossible it certainly seemed to be. Chat Moss was like a sponge, and
how was an engineer to build a solid road for heavy trains over four
miles of soppy sponge! A person could not trust himself upon it in
safety, and when men did venture, they fastened flat boards to their
feet, something after the fashion of snow-shoes, and floundered along
upon them.

Stephenson began by taking the levels of the Moss in a similar manner.
Boards were placed upon the spongy moss, and a footpath of heather
followed. Then came a temporary railroad. On this ran the trucks
containing the material for a permanent path, which were pushed by boys
who learned to trot along easily on the narrow rails.

Drains were dug on either side of the proposed road, and tar-barrels
covered with clay were fitted into a sewer underneath the line in the
middle of the Moss. Heather, hurdles, tree branches, etc., were spread
on the surface, and in some parts an embankment of dry moss itself
was laid down. Ton after ton of it disappeared until the directors
became alarmed, and the desperate expedient of abandoning the works was
considered.

But Stephenson was an Englishman out and out. He never knew when he was
beaten. “Keep on filling,” he ordered; and in spite of all criticism
and all alarm, he kept his hundreds of navvies hard at work, pouring in
load after load of dry turf.

It must be borne in mind, however, that Stephenson did not continue
blindly at his task. He had good reason for what he did. His
persistence was a patient, intelligent perseverance, and not a stupid
obstinacy. His main arguments seem to have been two. He judged that if
he constructed a sufficiently wide road, it would float on the moss,
even as ice or a raft of wood floats on water and bears heavy weights;
and secondly, he seems to have been animated by the idea, that, if
necessary, he could pour in enough solid or fairly solid stuff to reach
the bottom and rise up to the surface in a hard mass.

Both ideas seem to have been realised in different parts of the bog.
Joy took the place of despair, and triumph exulted over discouragement,
as at length the solid mass appeared through the surface. Furthermore,
the expense was found to be none so costly after all. No doubt any
quantity of turf could be obtained from the surrounding parts of the
Moss and dried.

At another part of the railway called Parr Moss an embankment about
a mile and a-half was formed by pouring into it stone and clay from
a “cutting” in the neighbourhood. In some places twenty-five feet of
earth was thus concealed beneath the Moss. The eye of the engineer had
as it were pierced through the bog and seen that his solid bank was
steadily being built up there.

Before, however, the road across Chat Moss was fairly opened, the trial
of locomotives for the prize of £500 had taken place. The fateful
day was the 1st day of October, 1829, and the competition was held
at Rainhill. A grand stand was erected, and the side of the railway
was crowded. Thousands of spectators were present. The future of the
locomotive was to be decided on this momentous occasion.

Now, hitherto the difficulty in the locomotive had been to supply a
steady and sufficient supply of steam to work the engine quickly and
attain high speed and power. Partly, this had been accomplished by
Stephenson’s device of the steam-blast in the funnel. But something
more was needed.

That requirement was found in the tubular boiler. If the long
locomotive boiler were pierced with tubes from end to end, it is clear
that the amount of heating surface offered to the action of the fire
would be greatly increased. It was this idea which was utilised in the
“Rocket,” the engine with which Stephenson competed at Rainhill, and
utilised more perfectly than ever before.

Trevithick himself seems to have invented something of the kind, and
M. Seguin, the engineer of the St. Etienne and Lyons Railway utilised
a similar method. But Henry Booth, the secretary of the railway which
Stephenson was then building, invented a tubular boiler without, it is
said, knowing anything of Seguin’s plan, and Stephenson who had already
experimented in the same direction, adopted Booth’s method.

At first it was a failure. The boiler, fitted with tubes through
which the hot air could pass, leaked disastrously, and Stephenson’s
son, Robert, wrote to his father in despair. But again George said
“persevere,” and he suggested a plan for conquering the difficulty.
Again, it was a simple, but as the event proved, an effective plan.

The copper tubes were merely to be fitted tightly to holes bored in the
boiler and soldered in. The heat caused the copper to expand and the
result was a very strong and water-tight boiler. There were twenty-five
of these tubes, each three inches in diameter, and placed in the lower
portion of the boiler, leading from the furnace to the funnel. Water
also surrounded the furnace. Further, the nozzles of the steam-blast
pipes were contracted so as to increase the power of the blast, and
consequently raise the strength of the draught to the fire.

[Illustration: “THE ROCKET.”]

The cylinders were not placed at the top of the boiler, but at the
sides in a slanting direction, one end being about level with the
boiler roof. They occupied a position mid-way between the old situation
upright on the roof and their present position below, or at the lower
portion. The pistons acted directly on the driving wheels by means of a
connecting rod, and the entire weight of the engine with water supply
was but 4½ tons.

On the day of trial only four engines competed. Many had been
constructed, but either were not completed in time, or for various
reasons could not be exhibited. The famous four were:—The “Novelty” by
Messrs. Braithwaite and Ericsson; The “Rocket” by Messrs. R. Stephenson
& Co.; The “Perseverance” by Mr. Burstall; and The “Sanspareil” by Mr.
Timothy Hackworth. Each engine seems to have run separately, and the
length of the course was two miles. The test was that the engine should
run thirty miles, backwards and forwards, on the two mile level course,
at not less than ten miles an hour, dragging three times its own weight.

The “Novelty” at first appears to have beaten the “Rocket,” for she
ran at times at the rate of twenty-four miles an hour; while the first
trip of the “Rocket” covered a dozen miles in fifty-three minutes.
The engineers of the “Novelty” used bellows to force the fire, but
on the second day these bellows gave way, and the engine could not
do its work. The boiler of the “Sanspareil” also showed defects, but
Stephenson’s “Rocket” calmly stood the strain. Practicable as usual,
Stephenson’s work was as good in its results, nay, even better than
before, for he hooked the “Rocket” to a carriage load of thirty
people, and rushed them along at the then surprising speed of between
twenty-four to thirty miles an hour. Mr. Burstall’s “Perseverance”
could not cover more than six miles an hour.

The competitions continued, but the “Novelty,” although running at the
rate of twenty-four and even twenty-eight miles an hour, broke down
again and yet again; its boiler plates appear to have gone wrong on one
occasion; while the “Sanspareil” also failed, and furthermore blew a
good deal of its fuel into the air because of the arrangement of its
steam-blast.

But the more the “Rocket” was tried, the more practicable and reliable
the engine appeared to be. On the 8th of October it gained a speed of
29 miles an hour, its steam pressure being about 50 lbs. to the square
inch, and its average speed was fifteen miles an hour—that is, five
miles an hour over the conditions required. These results appear to
have been accomplished with a weight of waggons of thirteen tons behind
it. When detached it ran at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour.

In short, the “Rocket” was the only locomotive which fulfilled all
the conditions specified for the competition, and the prize was duly
awarded to Stephenson and Booth.

The battle of the locomotive was won. Men could see that the machine
was feasible and practicable; that it was a new force with immense
possibilities before it.

How have those possibilities been realised?




CHAPTER IV.

A MARVEL OF MECHANISM.


“The time is coming when it will be cheaper for a working man to travel
on a railway than to walk on foot.”

So prophesied George Stephenson some few years before his successful
competition at Rainhill; and by his success on that fateful day, he had
brought the time appreciably nearer. The directors of the Liverpool
and Manchester Railway no longer debated as to what form of traction
they should adopt.

But Stephenson did not rest on his laurels. Every new engine showed
some improvement. The “Arrow” sped over Chat Moss at about 27 miles an
hour, on the occasion of the first complete journey along the line, on
the 14th of June, 1830; and when, on the public opening of the railway
on the 15th of September, 1830, Mr. William Huskisson, M.P., was
unhappily knocked down by the “Rocket,” George Stephenson himself took
the maimed body in the “Northumbrian,” fifteen miles in twenty-five
minutes—that is, he drove the engine at the speed of thirty-six miles
an hour.

The sad death of Mr. Huskisson has often been referred to, but we
may tell the story again, following the account given by Mr. Smiles,
who had the advantage of the assistance of Robert Stephenson in the
preparation of his biography.

The engines it appears halted at Parkside, some seventeen miles from
Liverpool, to obtain water. The “Northumbrian,” with a carriage
containing the Duke of Wellington and some friends, stood on one
line, so that all the trains might pass him in review on the other.
Mr. Huskisson had descended from the carriage and was standing on the
rail on which the “Rocket” was rapidly approaching. There had been
some coolness between the Duke and Mr. Huskisson, but at this time the
Duke extended his hand and Mr. Huskisson hurried to grasp it, when the
bystanders cried “Get in! get in.”

Mr. Huskisson became flurried and endeavoured to go round the carriage
door which was open and hung over the rail; but while doing this, the
“Rocket” struck him and he fell, his leg being doubled over the rail
and immediately crushed. Unfortunately he died that evening at Eccles
Parsonage.

This sad event cast a gloom over the otherwise rejoicing day; but
the wonderful speed at which the wounded man was conveyed, proved a
marvellous object lesson as to what the locomotive could accomplish.

In the “Planet,” put upon the line shortly after the opening, the
cylinders were placed horizontally and within the fire box. The engine
drew eighty tons from Liverpool to Manchester against a strong wind
in two and a-half hours, while on another occasion with a company of
voters, it sped from Manchester to Liverpool, thirty-one miles, in an
hour. But next year the “Samson,” which was still further improved,
and the wheels of which were coupled so as to secure greater grip on
the rails, hauled 150 tons at twenty miles an hour with a smaller
consumption of fuel.

The locomotive had now become one of the wonders of the world. Since
then its speed has been doubled. But all the improvements (with
possibly one exception—that of the compound cylinder which is at
present only partially in use) have been more in details than in
principles. Thus the 70 or 80 ton express engine, which covers mile
after mile at the rate of a mile a minute without a wheeze or a groan,
is not very different essentially from George Stephenson’s locomotives,
though its steam pressure is very much higher.

There are, for instance, the multitubular boiler, the furnace
surrounded by water and communicating with the boiler, the horizontal
cylinders acting directly on the driving wheels, and the steam-blast by
which the waste steam is spouted up the chimney, creating a draught in
the furnace.

These may be regarded as the more important of the essential
principles, although there is diversity of details, more especially
for the different work required. But the steam pressure is now much
greater. Let us glance at a typical English locomotive. You might not
think it, but the machine has about five thousand different parts, all
put together as Robert Stephenson said “as carefully as a watch.”

At first sight you will probably not see the cylinders. The tendency
in many engines now seems to be to place them inside the wheels, for
it is urged that the placing of the heavier parts of the mechanism
near to the centre lessens oscillation, and protects the machinery
more effectually. Against this, it is said that the placing of the
cylinders in that position increases the cost and the complication of
the driving axle, and renders the pistons and valves more inaccessible
for the purposes of repair. Both forms have their advocates, and the
outside-cylinder form may be seen on the London and South-Western and
some other railways, while the inside may be seen on the North-Western
and others.

The boiler is of course the long, round body of the locomotive, and
in English machines it is placed on a strong plate frame. Then as to
the driving-wheels. Express engines, such as the splendid “eight-feet
singles” of the Great Northern, have often, as the name implies, but
one large driving-wheel on either side, and for great speeds this form
is held to possess certain advantages. Certainly the performances of
Mr. Patrick Stirling’s expresses would indicate that this is the case.

With steam raising the safety valve at a pressure of 140 lbs. to
the square inch, the engines will whisk a score of carriages out
of King’s Cross up the northern height of London at forty miles an
hour, and then without a stop rush on to Grantham at near sixty.
Standing on the platform at King’s Cross, with a large part of the
immense driving-wheel hidden below you as it rests on the rail, you
do not realise its tremendous size. Yet, let the engine-driver open
the throttle, as it is called—that is, turn on the steam to the
cylinders—and that huge wheel will revolve, and with its neighbour on
the other side, haul after them that heavy train of carriages, and,
gathering speed as they go, they will soon be rushing up the incline at
forty miles an hour, and then on at sixty. It is a marvel of mechanism!

But then the compound engines that Mr. F. W. Webb, the engineer of the
North-Western, builds for that Company can also perform remarkable
things. The compound is the great modern improvement (some engineers
might doubt whether improvement be the correct word) in the locomotive,
effecting, it is said, an economy of from ten to fifteen per cent.
in fuel. Now the compounding principle has been developed to such an
extent in marine steam engines that it revolutionised steam navigation.
But the application of the principle has not been so great in the case
of the locomotive.

Briefly, the principle is this—the steam is sent out from the boiler at
a high pressure, say 160 to 180 lbs. to the square inch, and is used
in one or in a pair of high-pressure cylinders, and then used again,
by means of its expanding power, in a larger, low-pressure cylinder.
Mr. John Nicholson, of the Great Eastern Railway, suggested a compound
locomotive before even the compound marine engine had been made, and
his design was successful; but in 1881 Mr. Webb, of the North-Western,
patented a compound locomotive, with two small high-pressure, and one
large low-pressure cylinders, the latter twenty-six inches in diameter.
Placed between the front wheels, the bright boss of this cylinder may
be seen in shining steel as it flies over the rails.

The argument is that the compound burns less fuel and is more powerful
than a non-compound of the same weight; but against this is launched
the objection that the compound is more expensive to build, to repair,
and to maintain. Still further it is argued, that a fast-speeding
locomotive has not the time in its hurrying life to expand its steam in
the tick of time between each stroke of the piston.

[Illustration:

THE COMPOUND LOCOMOTIVE “GREATER BRITAIN.” _By kind permission of Mr.
F. W. Webb, L. & N. W. Railway._ ]

Mr. Worsdell’s compounds on the North-Eastern Railway have but two
cylinders, one high and the other low-pressure. The one is eighteen and
the other twenty-six inches across. Instead of the steam alternating
between the two cylinders, it all passes first to the high-pressure
and then, through a pipe in the smoke-box, to the larger low-pressure
cylinder. These locomotives, it is said, are not under the objection
alleged against the other compounds—viz., that they have more parts,
and are more costly to build and maintain. Yet it is claimed for them
that they are more economical and more powerful than non-compounds.

When doctors disagree who shall decide? The cost or speed might decide;
but at present it seems doubtful on which side the balance does
really fall. Engines of the three types have done splendid work. A
Worsdell compound, built by Mr. Worsdell, of the North-Eastern Railway,
is reported to have rushed down the incline to Berwick one day at
seventy-six miles an hour for some miles at a time. Then the “Greater
Britain,” a massive North-Western compound engine, turned out at the
Crewe works in 1891, and weighing seventy-five tons, can whirl along
with ease a heavy twenty-five coach express at an average of over fifty
miles an hour, with a comparatively small consumption of fuel.

This locomotive was described in the _Engineer_ newspaper as the most
remarkable that had been built in England for several years. Its axle
bearings are of great length, and its parts are very substantial,
so that it ought to keep out of the repairing shops for long spells
of time. It was specially planned for both fast and heavy passenger
traffic to Scotland, and its work on its trial trip was so good that it
was confidently expected it would answer expectations. In working, the
engine has been found to develop great speed and power, easily running
at over fifty miles an hour with what is called a double train—viz.,
twenty-five coaches, behind it. Indeed, it has run at fifty-five
miles with this heavy train. Its stated speed ranges from thirty to
fifty-five miles an hour, with a low consumption of fuel.

This last is a matter of very great importance to engineers and railway
directors; and when we state that, according to Mr. Bowen Cooke, the
North-Western engines altogether burn 3095 tons of coal per day, any
small saving per hour would be eagerly welcomed.

Now, it is claimed that the compounds have consumed about six pounds
of coal per mile less than others on the same work, and that they also
haul along loads which would require two of the other type. If so, the
saving in the North-Western coal-bill must be enormous.

[Illustration: BACK AND FRONT VIEW OF THE LOCOMOTIVE “GREATER BRITAIN.”]

A great feature in this engine is a combustion chamber placed within
the barrel of the boiler. This chamber catches all the gases from the
furnace, and causes the heat generated by them to be used to the utmost
for the production of steam. Though heavier than any engine previously
built, yet it is so made that no greater weight than usual rests upon
any of the wheels, thus throwing no extra strain on the railway or
the bridges. The two couples of driving-wheels are placed before the
furnace, and an additional couple of small wheels behind the furnace,
and beneath the foot-plate where the driver and fireman stand. The
weight therefore is evenly distributed, with another pair of wheels to
bear the burden. The front wheels are fitted with the radial axle-box
patented by Mr. Webb, so that, although the engine is of great length,
yet it can speed round curves with perfect safety.

Yet this engine, though one of the most remarkable developments of the
locomotive, is in essence and in principle but very like the “Rocket.”
The difference lies in its innumerable details, exhibiting so much
engineering skill and ingenuity, in the compound cylinders, in higher
pressure steam, and in its marvellous power and speed combined.

On the other hand, the Great Northern runs daily from Grantham to
London at fifty-three and fifty-four miles an hour average; while it
was reported in the _Engineer_ of the 10th of March, 1888, that a Great
Northern train from Manchester to London, when running from Grantham to
London, covered one mile in forty-six seconds, that is, at the rate of
seventy-eight and a-quarter miles an hour, and two miles following each
other were run in forty-seven seconds each, that is, seventy-six miles
an hour. We doubt, indeed, if any railway in the world can show regular
faster daily running than some of the Great Northern expresses between
London and Grantham. The average speed of their Manchester train over
this ground is slightly over fifty-four miles an hour. Then there are
the Great Western expresses, the “Dutchman” and the “Zulu,” at only
slightly less speeds, to say nothing of the fine performances of the
Midland. We may take it, therefore, that the compound locomotives,
excellent as their work has been, have not really beaten their rivals
in point of speed.

Compounds are used largely on the North-Western, the Great Eastern,
and the North-Eastern, and should they prove to be really more
economical in working, while maintaining at least equal power and speed
with their rivals, we have no doubt but that they will prevail.




CHAPTER V.

A MILE A MINUTE.


“The express is to be quickened, my lord. Mr. Thompson, the general
manager, has given instructions to that effect.”

So spoke the station master at Carlisle, on the 17th of March, 1894, to
Lord Rosebery.

His lordship had very recently been appointed Prime Minister, and was
on his way to Edinburgh to deliver a great public speech. The train,
presumably, was late, or he, through stress of business probably, had
left too little margin of time. However, by the instructions of Mr.
Thompson, the general manager of the Caledonian Railway, the express
was accelerated, and it rushed over 101 miles in 105 minutes, one of
the quickest locomotive runs, we imagine, that have ever been recorded.
The train arrived fifteen minutes before it was due, and Lord Rosebery
was enabled to keep his engagement.

This run was approximately at the rate of a mile a minute, and
maintained for an hour and three-quarters. Only some two years or so
previously a somewhat similar run was made. An officer of the Guards
found that he had lost the south-going mail train at Stirling. He had
been on leave in Scotland, and was bound to report himself in London
next morning.

What was he to do? Did he sit down and moan, or fly to the telegraph
office and endeavour to excuse himself? Not he. He promptly engaged a
special train, which flying over the metals, actually caught the mail
at Carlisle, having covered 118 miles in 126 minutes; that is, again,
approximately a mile a minute, and maintained for slightly over two
hours.

Now, in order to attain high average speed, some parts of the journey,
say very easy inclines or levels, must be covered at a much higher
rate. Thus, to obtain an average of fifty-two miles an hour—which is
probably the regular average of our best English expresses—the pace
will most likely be sometimes at the rate of seventy, or it may be
seventy-six, miles per hour.

The United States have claimed to run the fastest regular train. This
is the “Empire State Express” of the New York Central, which bursts
away from New York to Buffalo, a trip of 140 miles, at the average rate
of 52-12/100 miles per hour, but running eighty miles at the rate of
56¾ miles an hour. It is also said that, in August, 1891, a train on
the New York portion of the Reading road ran a mile in less than forty
seconds, and covered a dozen miles at an average of barely 43½ seconds
per mile.

English expresses could certainly accomplish these average speeds,
but the fact is very high speeds do not pay. They wear everything
to pieces. Then there is the coal consumption. American railway
engineers—according to the _Engineer_ newspaper—“seem to be unable to
get on with less than 100 lbs. per square foot (of fire grate area) as
a minimum;” while, from the same paper, we learn that the average rate
of burning of Mr. Webb’s remarkable North-Western engine, the “Greater
Britain,” was but “a little over seventy-three lbs. per square foot per
hour,” or, altogether, 1500 lbs. per hour.

The rails also are greatly worn by continuous high speeds. Engineers
have been equal to this difficulty, and rails are now made of steel,
and even steel sleepers are constructed on which the rails repose. But
still the wear and tear, especially to engines, of continuous high
speeds, is very great. The reason why the famous “Race to Edinburgh”
was stopped was doubtless because of the needless wear and tear. Surely
an average of fifty to fifty-two miles an hour is fast enough for all
ordinary purposes. If greater speed can be obtained without too great a
cost, well and good; but if not, the public must be content.

Nevertheless, during that famous “Race” in the summer of 1888, some
magnificent engine work was accomplished. Thus, for instance, the
North-Western and their partners actually ran from Euston to Edinburgh,
400 miles, in 427 minutes. Then the Great Northern and their partners,
the East Coast route, next day covered 393 miles in 423 minutes, this
journey including 124½ miles from Newcastle to Edinburgh covered in 123
minutes. This speed is, of course, more than a mile a minute, and kept
up for slightly over two hours.

The third-class passenger was at the root of the matter. Companies are
finding out they must consult his convenience; and the beginning of the
“Race” was probably the announcement that the “Flying Scotchman”—the
10 o’clock morning train from King’s Cross—would carry third-class
passengers. Hitherto it had beaten its rival, the West Coast route (run
by the North-Western and its partner, the Caledonian), as to speed, but
had conveyed only first and second-class passengers.

Thereupon the West Coast announced that they would reach Edinburgh
in nine hours. As this route is harder for engines—for it climbs the
Cumbrian Hills, and is, moreover, seven miles longer—this would mean
faster running and harder work than its rivals. The Great Northern,
which according to its well-deserved reputation probably tops the world
for speed, could not brook this, so the East Coast route reduced its
time from nine hours to eight hours and a-half.

So the contest stood for about a month, when the West Coast calmly
announced the same time for its journey. Thenceforward the blows fell
thick and fast. It was a battle of giants, but fought with good temper
and gentlemanly honour on both sides.

The West Coast were arriving at Edinburgh at half-past six. “The Flying
Scotchman,” by the East Coast route, thereupon drew up in the Scotch
capital at six o’clock. Then the West Coast ran to Edinburgh in eight
hours, stretching away from Euston to Crewe, 158½ miles in 178 minutes,
without a stop—probably the longest run without a break ever made. The
Caledonian Company, the North-Western’s partner, then ran from Carlisle
to Edinburgh, 100¾ miles, in 104 minutes. The North-Western thereupon
actually ran from Preston to Carlisle, over the Cumberland Hills,
ninety miles in ninety minutes—a magnificent performance hard indeed
to beat, if, in fact, it ever has been really beaten; while, later
on, the same Company ran from Euston to Crewe in 167 minutes instead
of their remarkable 178 minutes a few days previously. This, with the
other accelerations, gave the West Coast their record run of 400 miles
in 427 minutes of running time, which took place on the 13th of August.
But the East Coast had also accelerated, the North-Eastern covering 205
miles in 235 minutes, and the Great Northern rendering an equally good,
if not better, performance, the whole 393 miles being covered in 423
minutes. Some of the miles on the East Coast route sped by at the rate
of seventy-six an hour.

To accomplish these runs the weight of trains was cut down, and the
times of stoppages reduced or abolished altogether. But the expense
was too great. It did not really “pay” in convenience or in money,
and to these judgments companies must bow. But considering that the
Great Northern reaches Grantham, 105¼ miles, in 115 minutes as a
daily occurrence, an approximate running of near a mile a minute, and
that the North-Western can run at an average of fifty-five miles an
hour, the locomotive has amply justified George Stephenson’s prophecy
when he made “Blucher,” that there was no limit to the speed of the
locomotive, provided the work could be made to stand.

Mr. C. R. Deacon also prophesied a few years since in an American
magazine that a hundred miles an hour would be the express speed of
the future, provided that passengers would give up luxurious cars and
dining and sleeping carriages. At present it seems questionable if they
will do so.

[Illustration: THE “FLYING DUTCHMAN.”]

But speed is by no means the monopoly of the North. Other companies
beside the owners of the East and West Coast routes to Scotland can run
expresses equally or almost as fast. There is the “Flying Dutchman,”
for instance, of the Great Western. It daily covers the 77¼ miles
from London to Swindon in 87 minutes. And the tale is told by Mr. W.
M. Acworth, on the authority of an inspector who was in charge of the
train, that a famous Great Western engine, the “Lord of the Isles,”
which was in the Exhibition of 1851, actually whirled a train from
Swindon to London, 77¼ miles in 72 minutes.

Some of those older engines could run bravely. Mr. Acworth reports that
“a Bristol and Exeter tank-engine with 9 feet driving wheels, a long
extinct species,” pelted down a steep incline at the speed of 80 miles
an hour, many years since, and it has never been surpassed. The fastest
speed during the Race to Edinburgh days seems to have been 76 miles,
but perhaps the weight of the trains may have accounted for this. Mr.
Acworth himself is believed to have accomplished the fastest bit of
advertised journeying in the world. He went down on the “Dutchman,”
and leaving Paddington at 11.46, he caught the return train at Swindon
and was back at 2.45, having covered 154½ miles, with five minutes for
refreshments, in 177 minutes. The line is easier on the up journey to
London, and mile after mile sped by at a rate of over 60 miles an hour.
From 56½ to 58 seconds was the chronograph’s record again and again,
while on the down journey to Swindon he records a burst of 34½ miles in
34 minutes.

The gradients of the railway form of course a most important factor
in the question of speed. The Midland has one of the hardest roads in
England for steep slopes, yet its magnificent engines bring its heavy
trains from Leicester, 99¾ miles in 122 minutes. Considering the high
levels the locomotives have to climb, only to sink again to low flats,
as about the Ouse at Bedford, this performance is really as fine as
some of the superb running of the Great Northern.

The Southern lines out of London have no long distances to cover as
the Northern, unless it may be the South-Western to Plymouth. The
South-Western to Bournemouth and Exeter, and the mail trains on the
South-Eastern, Chatham and Dover, and the Brighton trains can also show
some excellent work as regards speed.

The government of a large railway now has grown to something like the
rule of a small state. Sir George Findlay, the general manager of the
North-Western Company, in his evidence before the Labour Commission
in 1892, deposed that the capital raised for British railways amounted
to the vast sum of 897 millions of pounds; that the receipts were 80
millions yearly, that much more than half of this immense amount,
namely 43 millions, yearly was paid in wages, and that half-a-million
of men directly or indirectly were given employment.

To such enormous dimensions has the railway developed. And the
locomotive engine is the centre and soul of it all. Stephenson got
it, so to speak, on its right lines of working, and it has run along
them ever since, until in its great capacity for speed, its power for
drawing heavy loads, and its strength and beauty of construction it may
fairly be called one of the wonders of the world.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]


THE STORY OF THE STEAMSHIP.




CHAPTER I.

THE “COMET” APPEARS.


“If only people could reach the place easier, I could do more business.”

So mused Henry Bell of Glasgow about the year 1810. He was an ingenious
and enterprising man, and he had established a hotel or bathing-house
at Helensburgh on the Clyde. But he wanted more visitors, and he
puzzled his brain to discover how he could offer facilities for them to
reach the place.

He tried boats, worked by paddles, propelled by hand; but these proved
a failure. They had been in use years before, though perhaps he knew it
not. Tradition says that boats fitted with paddle wheels and worked by
oxen in the boat, were known to the Egyptians, but perhaps tradition
is wrong. The Romans and the Chinese also are said to have known wheel
boats, the wheels worked by men or by animals—in the case of the
Chinese apparently by men alone. A similar kind of boat appears to have
been tried on the Thames in the seventeenth century; but whether Bell
knew of these things or not, his experiments of the same kind did not
answer. What was to be done?

He determined to build a steamboat. At first sight there does not seem
to be much connection between baths and steamboats, but apparently it
was the ownership of the one which led Henry Bell to build the other,
and to become the first man in Great Britain who used a steamboat for
what may be called public and commercial purposes.

She was a queer craft. Her funnel was bent and was used also as a mast,
and she poured forth quantities of thick smoke. But she was successful,
and laboured along at the rate of five miles an hour. Up and down the
river she plied, and whatever else she did, or did not, she made the
good folk of those days understand that steam could be applied to
navigation.

She was called the _Comet_, not because, even in the opinion of her
owner, she resembled a blazing meteor, but because, to use Bell’s own
words, “she was built and finished the same year that a comet appeared
in the north-west part of Scotland.”

“Whatever made you think of starting a steamship?” we can imagine a
friend asking him as they stood on the bank and watched the _Comet_
with her paddles shaped like malt shovels, splashing up the water.

“Partly it was Miller’s experiments, and partly it was a letter from
Fulton. You know, Fulton has put the _Clermont_ successfully on
American waters. He had been over here talking with Symington, who had
a steamer on the Forth and Clyde Canal you remember, and he wrote to me
also asking about machinery and requesting me to inquire about Miller’s
boats, and send him drawings.”

“And did you?”

“Oh ay, I did; but when he replied afterwards that he had made a
steamboat from the drawings though requiring some improvements, I
thought how absurd it was to send my opinions to other countries and
not put them into practice in our own.”

“So you made the _Comet_?”

“Well, I made a number of models before I was satisfied; but when I
was convinced the idea would work, I made a contract with John Wood &
Co., of Port-Glasgow, and they built me this boat, which I fitted up
with engine and paddles, as you see. John Robertson actually set up the
engine. We will go aboard presently, and you shall see her.”

[Illustration: BELL’S “COMET.”]

They did so, and this is something of what they saw. They found a
small vessel, forty feet long and ten and a-half wide, and only about
twenty-five tons burthen. The furnace was bricked round, and the
boiler, instead of being in the centre, was seated on one side of the
ship, with the engine beside it. But the funnel was bent and rose aloft
in the middle, and it answered the purpose of a mast—to carry sail.

“But look at the machinery,” we can imagine Bell saying to his friend.
“We have one single cylinder, you see. The piston is attached to a
crank on an axle. This axle carries a big cog wheel, which, working two
more placed on the paddle axles, causes them to revolve.”

“And the paddles?”

“Well, you see, we have now two sets on each side, and each paddle is
shaped something like a malt shovel; but I think I shall alter them,
and have paddle wheels soon.”

Bell carried out his improvement, and in a short time he did adopt the
better form of paddle wheel. The improved _Comet_, with a new engine,
attained six or seven miles an hour. But before this, Mr. Hutchison, a
brewer, built another boat, bigger than the _Comet_, and her engine was
of ten horse-power, while the _Comet’s_ was but three. She travelled
at an average of nine miles an hour, and her fares were but a-third of
those charged by coach.

The news of the steamers on the Clyde became noised abroad, and
steamboats began to appear on other British rivers. The success of the
new venture became assured.

But how had it been brought about? Bell had referred to the labours
of others, and, indeed, his was not the first steamboat, though,
doubtless, it was the first in Britain to ply for passengers.

The truth is, that as with the locomotive, several minds were working
towards the same object. And among those early steamboat seekers
Patrick Miller, of Dalswinton, and William Symington, of Wanlockhead
Mines, are entitled to high place.

Indeed, Symington is said to have built the “first practically
successful steamboat” in the world. She was called the _Charlotte
Dundas_, and, in 1802, she tugged two barges, together of about 140
tons, nineteen and a-half miles, in six hours, with a strong wind
against her.

She was built under the patronage of Lord Dundas, and was intended to
be used for towing on the Forth and Clyde Canal, but the proprietors of
the canal would not adopt this new method of propulsion; they feared
that the wash from the wheels would damage the canal banks. So the
_Charlotte Dundas_, successful though she was to a certain extent, had
to be beached and broken up. But Fulton and Bell both inspected her,
and we may infer that what they saw, influenced their subsequent action.

The engine of the _Charlotte Dundas_ was of the “double action”
character, introduced by Watt, and it turned a crank in the paddle
wheel shaft. The wheel was placed at the stern; and boats with their
wheels thus placed are still made for use in particular places. Thus
Messrs. Yarrow built one in 1892, to voyage in the shallow rivers
and lagoons on the west coast of Africa; the idea being that a
screw-propeller would have been likely to become fouled with weeds.

The _Charlotte Dundas_, we say, has been regarded as the “first
practically successful steamboat ever built.” No doubt it was so, and
the credit must be largely given to William Symington. But his success,
and that which crowned the labours of others, were rendered possible by
the inventions and improvements of James Watt.

Others had experimented before Symington. Thus, if royal records
in Spain may be trusted, a certain Blasco de Garay exhibited a
steam vessel, in 1543, at Barcelona. He placed a large cauldron of
boiling water in the ship, and a wheel on each side. Certain opinions
concerning it were favourable, and Blasco was rewarded; but the
invention was kept secret, and appears to have died.

Then, in 1655, the Marquis of Worcester is said to have invented
something like navigation by steam. Later on, Jonathan Hulls took out a
patent for a paddle steam vessel in 1736; and among others, in England,
France, and America, the Marquis de Jouffroy made a steamer which was
tried at Lyons, in 1783. Then, in 1787, Patrick Miller is said to have
patented paddle wheels in Britain.

Miller was a retired gentleman at Dalswinton, in Dumfriesshire, who
took much interest in mechanical affairs. He experimented with paddle
wheels, and he also endeavoured to improve naval building. At first the
wheels appear to have been turned by men, and there came a day when a
double boat of Miller’s, worked by a couple of wheels with two men to
turn each wheel, sailed with a Custom House boat, and the need of more
efficient motive power to revolve the wheels became very marked. Then
the idea of steam navigation was born, or re-born.

There was a gentleman named Taylor, living with Miller, as tutor to his
sons, and he often took part in the experiments with the boats. It is
said that Taylor suggested the use of steam to propel the vessel, and
that Miller doubted its practicability. However, he decided, at length,
to try it, and in those summer days of 1787 the subject was much talked
of at Dalswinton. Taylor mentioned the matter to Symington, who, it
seems, was a friend of his, but it is not quite clear whether he had
himself thought of this use of steam. However, in October, 1788, the
experiment was tried on Dalswinton lake.

A boy was there who afterwards became Lord Brougham, and Robert Burns
was also there; and, no doubt, the experiment was watched with much
interest.

It appears to have been successful, and next year a bigger boat was
tried on the Forth and Clyde Canal, again with some success. But
whether Mr. Miller thought he had now spent enough money on these
experiments—and Carlyle says Miller “spent his life and his estate
on that adventure, and died _quasi_-bankrupt and broken-hearted”—or
whether he was satisfied with the results attained, he abandoned all
further effort. Possibly he did not see any opportunity of utilising
the invention further. At all events, the development of the steamboat
made practically no progress until Symington commenced his experiments
under Lord Dundas.

Russell is of opinion that the invention of steam navigation was the
joint production of these three men. “The creation of the steamship,”
says he, “appears to have been an achievement too gigantic for any
single man. It was produced by one of those happy combinations in which
individuals are but tools, working out each his part in a great system,
of the whole of which no single one may have comprehended all the
workings.”

[Illustration: ROBERT FULTON.]

To these three, however, must be added Henry Bell, in Britain, and
Robert Fulton, in America. They carried the great enterprise further
on, to something like assured success.

Miller’s boats had two hulls, and the paddle wheels revolved between.
Symington placed his wheel astern. Bell placed his paddles on either
side.

“Ah, she will work!” we can imagine the spectators saying, as they
watched that strange craft, the _Charlotte Dundas_, with her double
rudder, tugging along her barges.

“Ay, she will work, but the canal folk won’t let her; they think the
wash from the wheels will wear away the bank!”

“Then I will take the idea where it won’t be so hindered,” said
another. “We are not afraid of our river banks in America.”

That man, whom we imagine said this, and who appears, without doubt, to
have inspected the _Charlotte Dundas_, was Robert Fulton, who, with his
companion, Livingstone, claim to have invented steamboats in the United
States.

This, then, in brief, seems to be the story. While bearing in mind the
efforts of others, yet it would seem that Miller, Taylor, and Symington
invented steam navigation, utilising improvements of Watt on the steam
engine; but Fulton, in America, and Bell, in Britain, seeing something
of these experiments, developed them to assured success.

What were Fulton’s adventures?




CHAPTER II.

TO THE NARROW SEAS.


“I should not like to risk my money in the thing.”

“Nor I, she will never pay.”

“I reckon she will burst up before the day is over.”

“Well, she is about to start now.” A few minutes more, and the smiles
on the faces of the speakers changed to expressions of astonishment.
The boat was actually “walking the waters like a thing of life,” and
gathering speed as she drew away from the pier.

“Why, stranger, this thing’s going to succeed.”

“It does look so.”

Still the speakers gazed, and still the vessel continued to glide
along. And shouts and applause burst from the thronging crowd around.
The “thing” was succeeding indeed.

They were watching the trial trip of the first practically successful
steamboat in America, the _Clermont_. Fulton had been successful, and
together with his companion, Livingstone—after whose residence the
vessel was named—had launched a satisfactory steamer in America, five
years before the _Comet_ appeared in Britain. Yet the _Clermont’s_
engines were made in Britain by Boulton & Watt, and men from their
works helped in mounting the machinery.

Colden, Fulton’s biographer, describing this trial trip, says:—

“The minds of the most incredulous were changed in a few minutes—before
the boat had made the progress of a quarter of a mile the greatest
unbeliever must have been converted. The man who, while he looked on
the expensive machine, thanked his stars that he had more wisdom than
to waste his money on such idle schemes, changed the expression of his
features as the boat moved from the wharf and gained her speed; his
complacent smile gradually stiffened into an expression of wonder;
the jeers of the ignorant, who had neither sense nor feeling enough
to repress their contemptuous ridicule and rude jokes, were silenced
for the moment by a vulgar astonishment, which deprived them of the
power of utterance, till the triumph of genius extorted from the
incredulous multitude which crowded the shores shouts and acclamations
of congratulations and applause.”

The scene of the vessel’s exploit was the famous river Hudson, and she
came to make several trips between New York and Albany as a passenger
boat. She performed the journey from Albany to New York in thirty-two
hours, and back in thirty hours; her average speed being five miles an
hour. Steamers now perform the passage in about eight hours.

The boat caused great astonishment at the time. Colden says she was
described by some who saw her but indistinctly at night as “a monster
moving on the water, defying the winds and tide, and breathing flames
and smoke.” He states:—“She had the most terrific appearance from
other vessels which were navigating the river when she was making her
passage. The first steamboats, as others yet do, used dry pine-wood for
fuel, which sends forth a column of ignited vapour, many feet above
the flue, and whenever the fire is stirred a galaxy of sparks fly off,
which, in the night, have an airy, brilliant, and beautiful appearance.
This uncommon light first attracted the attention of the crews of
other vessels. Notwithstanding the wind and tide were adverse to its
approach, they saw, with astonishment, that it was rapidly coming
towards them; and when it came so near that the noise of the machinery
and the paddles was heard, the crews in some instances shrunk beneath
their decks from the terrific sight; and others left their vessels to
go on shore; while others, again, prostrated themselves and besought
Providence to protect them from the approach of the horrible monster
which was marching on the tides, and lighting its path by the fires
which it vomited.”

Compare this with the stately passenger boats of the end of the
century, gliding along four or five times as fast, but with little
noise and less smoke, and beaming forth brilliant electric light from
every saloon window.

The _Clermont_ was 133 feet long, 18 feet wide, and 7 feet deep. The
cylinder of her engine was 24 inches in diameter, and her piston had a
stroke of four feet; her paddle wheels were at first too large, or at
all events dipped too deeply in the water. When improved they appear
to have been fifteen feet in diameter. Her engines were 18 horse-power,
and the tonnage was but 160.

Fulton was busily engaged in constructing steam vessels until he died
in 1815. One of his efforts was the building of a steam war vessel; and
so greatly were his efforts esteemed that both Houses of the United
States Legislature testified their respect for him by wearing mourning
apparel on the occasion of his death.

His work was developed by Mr. R. L. Stevens, whose father, indeed, had
a steamer ready, only a few weeks after the success of the _Clermont_.
Mr. R. L. Stevens came to grasp the idea that the form of the hull of
steamships could be much improved by giving them fine lines instead of
full round bows. Stevens, it is said, was able to obtain a speed of
thirteen miles an hour; and he also, it is stated, used a different
form of engine from that adopted by Fulton.

The engines of those early steamboats were, as a rule, a sort of beam
engine. The famous _Comet_ was engined in that manner. John Robertson,
who actually set up the _Comet’s_ engines, lived to place them
subsequently in South Kensington Museum. A beam, or lever, which worked
on a pivot at its centre, was placed between the piston on one side,
and the connecting rod—which was fastened to the crank—on the other.
Thus, one end of the beam, or lever, was attached to the piston rod,
and the other to the end of the connecting rod which drove the crank
and the wheel.

A development apparently of this beam-engine arrangement was the
side-lever engine—a form of which marine engineers were also fond. The
side lever seems, in fact, to have been a sort of double beam engine.
The cylinder was placed upright, and a cross-piece was fixed to the
end of the piston rod. From either end of this cross-piece a rod was
connected with a beam or lever on either side of the machinery below.
These levers worked on pivots at their centres, and their other ends
were joined by a cross-piece united by a rod to the crank-shaft above.
The idea in the side-lever engines appears to have been to obtain equal
strength on both sides for each paddle wheel. Marine engineers did
not apparently at first grasp the idea of a direct-acting engine—that
is, simply one connecting rod between the piston and the crank which
pulled round the wheel; perhaps the sizes and arrangements of those
early steamboats did not permit of this. But in the development of the
locomotive, the direct-acting engine did not appear at once. In any
case, even the first vessels of the celebrated Cunard Line were of the
cumbrous side-lever type.

Now, when Fulton had made his _Clermont_ in 1807, and Bell had put his
_Comet_ on the Clyde, some of the English speaking people on both sides
of the Atlantic began, we say, to see that there was a future before
the new invention. In 1809, the _Accommodation_ ploughed the waters
of the great St. Lawrence, and two years later a steamer startled the
dwellers on the mighty Mississippi. The _Elizabeth_ also followed the
_Comet_ on the Clyde in 1813.

She was bigger than her predecessor, but only of thirty-three tons;
she was fifty-eight feet long, and her engine of ten horse-power.
She was built by the constructors of the _Comet_, Wood & Company,
of Port-Glasgow, under the direction of Mr. Thompson, who had been
connected with some of Bell’s experiments.

The next step was the introduction of steamers on the Thames. All
things gravitate to London, steamboats among the rest. Passing by some
experiments, in which the names of a Mr. Dawson and a Mr. Lawrence
appear, we find that George Dodd brought a steamboat from the Clyde to
the Thames by sea, using both sails and steam, about the year 1813 or
1814. It is said that Dawson had a steamer plying between London and
Gravesend in 1813, and that Lawrence, of Bristol, after using a steamer
on the Severn brought her through the canals to the Thames, but was
obliged to take her back because of the antagonism of the watermen. It
is said also that the _Marjorie_, built by William Denny, of Dumbarton,
was brought to the Thames about 1815 in six days from Grangemouth,
having been purchased by some London merchants.

However this may be, the name of George Dodd should take a high place,
perhaps next to that of Bell, for the enterprise and effort he showed
in seeking to establish steam vessels. His sphere was chiefly the
Thames, though he appears to have been also animated with the idea of
using them upon the sea. The vessel he brought round from the Clyde
was named first the _Glasgow_ and afterwards the _Thames_, and was
of about seventy-five tons, with nine feet paddle-wheels, and some
fourteen or sixteen horse-power. He had some rough weather in the Irish
Sea, and an account of the voyage is given in his book on steamboats.
This, presumably in 1813, was the first steamship voyage at sea, as
distinguished from steamers’ voyages on rivers.

Such great progress had the introduction of steamboats made in 1818,
that according to Dodd there were in that year eighteen on the Clyde,
two on the Tay, two at Dundee, two at Cork, two on the Tyne, two on the
Trent, two on the Mersey, four on the Humber, three on the Yare, one on
the Avon, the Severn, the Orwell, six on the Forth, and actually two
intended to run from Dublin to Holyhead. There may have been more than
these, but they seem at all events to be the chief. Apparently there
were, or had been, several on the Thames. Two, the _London_ and the
_Richmond_, according to Dodd’s book, were plying between London and
Twickenham, and had carried 10,000 persons in four months. No wonder
the watermen were alarmed.

Other vessels also had appeared on the royal river. The _Majestic_
even had got as far as Margate, and had ventured across to Calais. The
_Regent_ had been burned off Whitstable, and the _Caledonia_, which
had actually two engines, had steamed across to Flushing. Dodd further
designed a vessel which seems to have gone to Margate in about seven
and a-half hours, speeding along at about ten or eleven miles an hour.
No wonder that Bell could say—“I will venture to affirm that history
does not afford an instance of such rapid improvement in commerce and
civilisation as that which will be effected by steam vessels.” The
_Richmond_ was a little boat of 50 tons, and 17 indicated horse-power.
She was engined by Messrs. Maudslay & Field, of London, and presumably
was the first steamer engined on the Thames. She ran from London to
Richmond. In the next year Messrs. Maudslay engined the _Regent_ of 112
tons and 42 indicated horse-power, and intended to ply between London
and Margate; while, in 1817, this famous firm engined three vessels,
including the _Quebec_ of 500 tons and 100 indicated horse-power,
intended for Quebec and Montreal. Since then they have engined hundreds
of vessels, including screw-propeller ironclads of 20,000 horse-power.

Dodd, alas, though he worked so hard for the establishment of the
steamship, does not seem to have profited by his labour. Like some
other ingenious men he unhappily fell into poverty.

The next in order of succession, who apparently became the most
prominent and among the most useful in the story of the steamship, was
David Napier. Russell avers that from 1818 to about 1830 he “effected
more for the improvement of steam navigation than any other man.” David
Napier ran the _Rob Roy_, a steamer of 90 tons and 30 horse-power,
fitted with his own engines, between Greenock and Belfast. It appears
that at one of the worst seasons he sailed in a vessel plying between
the two ports,—sometimes taking a week to cover the journey, afterwards
made in nine hours by steam,—and eagerly watched the effect of the
heaving waves on the ship as she was tossed by the storm. Then, assured
that there was no overwhelming difficulty for steamers, he started the
_Rob Roy_. He also experimented upon the best shape of hull, and,
without apparently any communication with Stevens across the Atlantic,
came to adopt a wedge-shaped bow, instead of a rounded fore front as
common in sailing ships.

In 1819 he put the _Talbot_ on the Channel between Dublin and Holyhead.
She was built by Wood & Company, and was one of the most perfect
vessels of the kind then constructed. She had two engines of 60
horse-power combined, and was 150 tons burthen. She was followed by the
_Ivanhoe_, and in 1821 steam vessels were regularly used to carry the
mails.

Gradually the length of vessels increased without the beam being
proportionately widened. The builders of those early boats did not at
first realise the practicability and usefulness of altering the form
of vessels for steamers. David Napier altered the bow, and gradually
the vessels were lengthened. The idea came gradually to be grasped
that as a steamer was forced forward along the line of its keel, and
not by a power exerted upon it from without and in various quarters,
its form might advantageously be changed. Moreover, it would seem that
the best form for steamers is also the best for fast sailers. Russell
is of opinion “that the fastest schooners, cutters, smugglers, yachts,
and slavers” approach more nearly to the form of the best steamers than
any other class of sailing vessels. However this may be, the shape of
a steamer as well as its machinery has much to do with its speed, and
David Napier appears to have contributed largely to these results in
Britain.

Steamers had now sped out from the rivers into the narrow seas around
Great Britain. The next step would be into the wide and open ocean. Who
would venture to take it?




CHAPTER III.

ON THE OPEN OCEAN.


Why should not the Great Western end at New York?

That was Brunel’s idea, and it had an immense effect on the
establishment of transatlantic steamships.

Brunel was the engineer of the Great Western Railway, and he
audaciously desired his line to end, not at Bristol or Penzance, but,
conquering the sea, he wished to plant his foot in the Empire city
itself.

Still he was not the first, nor the only one, in the field. To the
_Savannah_ belongs the honour of being the first steamship to cross the
Atlantic. Yet she was not altogether a steamship.

Mr. Scarborough, of Savannah—a port of the state of Georgia—purchased a
sailing ship of about 300 tons and 100 feet long, launched her at New
York in 1818, intending her to ply between the two places, and had her
fitted with machinery.

Why he changed his mind and sent her to Europe, we cannot say.
Apparently he could not trust to steam alone, for the paddle wheels
were so constructed that they could be folded up on deck when not in
use, and the shaft also was jointed for that purpose. Then in the
following May she started forth for Liverpool—the precursor of a mighty
fleet of magnificent ships which have followed since.

She reached the Mersey in twenty-five days—vessels now perform the
journey in about six. But she used steam on only eighteen days out of
the twenty-five. Several times during the journey the paddle wheels
were taken on deck, this operation occupying about half-an-hour.
Possibly this was done when the wind was very favourable for sails, and
so saved the fuel, which was pitch-pine.

Apparently Mr. Scarborough was not satisfied with the venture, for,
after failing to sell the ship in Russia, whither she voyaged, she
touched at different ports and returned home. The machinery was taken
out, and she winged her way henceforth by sails alone.

England next did something of the same kind. The _Falcon_ steam yacht,
a little vessel of 175 tons, voyaged to India in 1824, mostly, however,
by the power of sails. In the next year the _Enterprize_, engined by
Messrs. Maudslay & Field, made the passage by steam to Calcutta from
London in the net time of 103 days—ten being used in stoppages, and
the entire voyage thus occupying 113 days. She was a vessel of 500
tons, 122 feet keel, and 27 feet broad, while her engines were of 240
indicated power. Then the _Royal William_, hailing from Quebec, made
the transatlantic passage in 1831, principally by steam, in twenty-six
days. In 1835 Messrs. Willcox & Anderson began to run steamships to
Peninsular ports—an undertaking which blossomed out afterwards into the
celebrated Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company.

Then in 1838 two steamships, the _Sirius_ and the _Great Western_,
crossed the Atlantic, the latter in fourteen and a-half days. Brunel
had had his wish, and in 1836 he had formed the Great Western Steamship
Company, and the vessel of the same name had been commenced. Others
also were in the field, notably Messrs. Laird of Birkenhead, and
the British and American Steam Navigation Company was founded. The
_Sirius_, which had been built on the Thames, was purchased by them and
prepared for her voyage.

The prime mover in this matter is said to have been Mr. Macgregor
Laird. He had witnessed the work of steamships in the Niger Expedition
of 1832-33 both on sea and river, and from the time of his return he
advocated the establishment of steamships between Great Britain and
America.

The _Sirius_ left Cork on the 5th of April, and arrived at New York
eighteen days afterwards. She carried seven passengers, and close at
her heels followed Brunel’s _Great Western_, which had left Bristol
three days later. The two ships were received with loud acclaim, a vast
crowd of spectators beholding their arrival. The vessels proved beyond
possibility of doubt that the transatlantic voyage by steamships was
possible, and, at a stroke, the duration of the passage was reduced by
almost one-half. It has since been reduced to less than a quarter.

The _Sirius_ made on an average about 161 miles a-day, or slightly less
than seven miles an hour. She apparently, however, had been originally
built for plying between London and Cork; while the _Great Western_,
which had presumably been especially built for the transatlantic
traffic, was both larger and more powerful. Her average speed was about
208 miles a-day, that is between eight and nine miles an hour; while
returning, the speed was a little better, averaging about 213 miles per
day. The return voyage of the _Sirius_ was also better than her outward
passage.

The engines of the _Great Western_ were side-lever, and were built by
Messrs. Maudslay & Field, of London. The cylinders were 73½ inches
diameter, and the pistons had a big stroke of seven feet. The wheels’
diameter was no less than 28¾ feet, while the steam was generated in
four boilers. Her tonnage was 1340—the largest Maudslay’s had yet
engined, with 750 indicated horse-power. She voyaged many times across
the Atlantic, her fastest eastward passage being 12 days, 7½ hours.
The variation in her coal consumption was very remarkable. Thus, on
her first voyage 655 tons were burnt, but on her return journey she
consumed 263 tons less. No doubt this was owing to the greater use she
was able to make of the wind.

The proprietors of the two vessels soon began to build others. The
owners of the _Great Western_ laid down the _Great Britain_, and the
proprietors of the _Sirius_ began the _British Queen_. She had paddle
wheels of 31 feet diameter, and her piston stroke was the same as the
_Great Western_, 7 feet. Her engines were 500 horse-power, and her
cylinders 77½ inches in diameter. She was 275 feet long, 40 feet wide,
and 27 feet deep. From Portsmouth to New York she crossed in 14 days, 8
hours.

Satisfactory as these results were, the pecuniary returns unfortunately
were not so favourable. The _Great Western_, it is said, continued
running at a loss, but others were withdrawn. Something seemed wanting
to make the venture a commercial success. What was it?

Meantime Willcox & Anderson’s steamers plied with remarkable regularity
to the Peninsula, and this regularity aroused some attention. The
Government of the day applied to the proprietors to submit a scheme for
carrying the mails. It seems that previously Willcox & Anderson had
proposed this, but it had come to nothing. The end of the matter was,
however, that the first mail contract was signed with them, the 22nd
of August, 1837. To carry out their bargain, Captain Richard Bourne
and Messrs. Willcox & Anderson founded the Peninsula Company, and
three years later it was expanded to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam
Navigation Company—popularly known as the P. & O.—and incorporated by
Royal Charter. The mail service was the keystone of the enterprise.

The first steamer, built in 1829, was the _William Fawcett_, a small
vessel of 206 gross tonnage, and but 60 horse-power. In 1842 the
proprietors owned the _Hindostan_, of 2017 gross tonnage, and 520
horse-power. She was a paddle-wheel vessel, and opened the Indian Mail
Service. The commencement of this service marks another stage in the
history of steam navigation. About fifty years later the Company owned
about half-a-hundred ships, two being of 8000 horse-power and 7000
tonnage.

Some two years after the _Hindostan_ first steamed to India, Brunel’s
_Great Britain_ was finished. She was a very remarkable vessel, and the
wonder of her time. In the first place, she was built of iron, and,
secondly, she was propelled by a screw, though at first it was intended
that she should have paddle-wheels, and the engines for these wheels
had been partly made.

Barges and light vessels had been built of iron since about 1790, or
earlier, and the Lairds of Birkenhead, among others, had built an iron
vessel about 1829. It is said that the _Aglaia_ was the first iron
steamer built on the Clyde in 1832. As for the screw-propeller, John
Ericsson was successful with the _Francis B. Ogden_ in 1836, and three
years later Sir Francis Pettit Smith clearly showed, in the vessel
appropriately called the _Archimedes_, the value and the feasibility of
the new system.

Brunel, therefore, ever open to improvements, combined these two
alterations in the _Great Britain_. It was in 1839, probably after
Sir Pettit Smith’s success, that the change was made as regards the
screw for this vessel, though the paddle-wheel engines had been begun.
The superiority of the screw-propeller over the paddle-wheels are
said to be these:—the engines occupy less room, and are lighter—two
very important considerations. Then there is greater wear and tear on
paddle-wheels, and consequently the screw vessels are less expensive.
But most important of all, the screw being deep in the water, the
vessel is much more suitable for ocean traffic. In the heaving billows
of the sea one wheel may be buried deep on one side of the ship, and
the other whirling round high in the air, and not propelling the
vessel; whereas the screw, being always immersed, except possibly in
severe pitching, is more constantly efficient for the whole of the
vessel.

Nevertheless, paddle-boats have their advantages. They need less water
to work in, are started more easily, and stopped sooner. Further, it is
said they are less liable to cause sea-sickness, as they do not roll so
much. In a word, the difference seems to be this: paddle vessels are
better suited as passenger boats on the shallower waters; screw vessels
for deep sea and long distance voyages, though whether the adoption
of twin-screws,—which it appears need not be immersed so deeply in the
water as one screw,—will bring screw vessels into use on shallower
waters remains to be seen.

But when the _Great Britain_ was being built the greater efficiency of
the screw-propeller for ocean voyages was not widely understood. She
was a fine vessel, over 320 feet long, 51 feet wide, and 32½ feet deep.
Her screw was successful; but on her fourth voyage to New York she
became stranded in Dundrum Bay, and lay aground for nearly a year.

Incidentally, however, this catastrophe seems to have given great
impetus to iron shipbuilding; for after being floated, she was
discovered to have suffered but comparatively slight damage. She
was seen in dock by many persons interested in shipping, and they
became impressed with the practicability and usefulness of iron for
shipbuilding.

Unfortunate _Great Britain_! She passed through many vicissitudes. Her
owners got into difficulties, and after some alterations, she ran to
Australia, and at length she wheezed her way to the Falkland Islands,
where, it is said, she served as a hulk—a sorry end to a successful
beginning.

The engines of the early screw vessels appear to have very much
resembled those for paddle-wheels ships. Thus the _Rattler_, engined
by Messrs. Maudslay for the Admiralty about the year 1841, had upright
cylinders, with a crank-shaft overhead and wheels to give speed to the
screw.

In the meantime, however, the commercial difficulty of transatlantic
steam traffic was being solved. The something lacking had been
supplied. What was it?




CHAPTER IV.

THE OCEAN RACE.


“This is the very opportunity I have been wanting!”

The speaker was looking at a paper setting forth that the British
Government were open to consider contracts for the carrying of the
letters by steamships between Great Britain and America. Encouraged, no
doubt, by the success attending the conveyance of the mails by similar
means to the Peninsula, the Government were now going farther afield.

The practicability of ocean steam traffic had been amply demonstrated;
but some of those early steamships did not “pay,” and to that test,
after all, such undertakings must come. Now, the man into whose hands
the circular had fallen was of great intelligence and remarkable
energy. He was a merchant and owner of ships, and agent for the East
India Company at Halifax, Nova Scotia. His name has since become known
the wide world over. It was Samuel Cunard.

Apparently he had cherished the idea of establishing transatlantic
steam traffic for some years—since 1830 it is said—and now, here was
the opportunity. The British Government would, of course, give a
handsome sum for carrying the mails, and that sum would form a backbone
to the enterprise.

Over came Cunard to London in 1838. Mr. Melvill, the secretary of
the East India Company, gave him a letter of introduction to Mr.
Robert Napier, the eminent engineer at Glasgow. Thither then went the
indomitable merchant, and was heartily welcomed. Napier knew Mr. George
Burns, who was partner with Mr. David MacIver in a coasting trade,
and the upshot of the matter was that capital of considerably over
a quarter of a million (£270,000) was subscribed through Mr. Burns’s
influence.

The first great step thus taken, Mr. Cunard made a good offer to the
Government, and although another offer was made by the owners of the
_Great Western_, Cunard got the contract, the tender being regarded as
much more favourable. The subsidy was eventually £81,000 per annum. The
contract was for seven years, and was signed by the three gentlemen
mentioned—Cunard, Burns, and MacIver.

These three divided the labour. Cunard ruled at London, MacIver at
Liverpool, and Burns at Glasgow. Napier was to engine the new vessels.
It was decided that their names were all to end in “ia,” and nearly
every one of the now historic fleet has rejoiced in a title of that
ending. There is a sailor’s superstition that it is unlucky if the
vessels of a fleet are not named with some uniformity; but we doubt if
the superstition influenced the Cunard Company. In any case, they broke
another superstition by starting their first ship on a Friday! She was
a mail ship, and she had to go. The Cunard Company meant business.

But about their fleet. Their first order was for four vessels, all
of about the same size and power. The _Britannia_ was the first, and
her sisters were the _Caledonia_, the _Columbia_, and the _Acadia_.
They were paddle steamers, the value of the screw not having then
been clearly and widely demonstrated, all of them about 207 feet
long, 35⅓ feet broad, 22½ feet deep, and 1154 tons burthen. The
engines—side-lever, of course, in those days—were of 740 horse-power.
The boilers had return-flues, and were heated by a dozen furnaces.

They would look now quite out of fashion, like a lady’s dress of a past
age. They appeared something like sailing ships, with the straight
funnels added.

The _Britannia_ began the service by starting from Liverpool on the 4th
of July, 1840, and, attaining a speed of about 8½ knots per hour, she
made the passage to Halifax in 12 days, 10 hours, and returned in 10
days. Her average consumption of fuel was about thirty-eight tons daily.

The Bostonians gave the _Britannia_ quite an ovation. A grand banquet,
followed by speeches, celebrated the great occasion. But they gave even
more practical appreciation of their favour subsequently, for when, in
the winter season, the vessel became ice-bound in the harbour, they cut
a seven-mile passage for her through the ice, at their own cost.

The Cunarders were successful, and the conveyance of the mails by
steamship became quite established. The white-winged clipper ships
fought hard against the Cunarders, but they had to yield. Three years
later the Company put another vessel on the route—the _Hibernia_—and in
1845 the _Cambria_. These were of greater size and developed a little
better speed than their forerunners. It has always been the policy of
the owners to improve their ships as they went on building, and even
thus early that policy ruled.

The establishment of the Cunard Company marks a most important step
in ocean steam navigation. Further, in the same year, 1840, in which
the Cunarders began to run, the Pacific Steam Navigation Company was
established. Ten years later saw the foundation of the Collins and the
Inman Lines. The Collins, an American Line, boasted that they would
run “the Cunarders off the Atlantic.” They were very fine vessels, and
they were the first fleet to fully adopt the upright stem and discard
the bowsprit. But the Cunarders were ready for the fierce competition.
They had actually put on six new vessels, and their new postal contract
of 1847 had stipulated for a weekly, instead of a fortnightly service;
while the subsidy was much increased. It was to be £173,340 annually
instead of £81,000.

[Illustration: THE ICE-BOUND “BRITANNIA” AT BOSTON. _By permission of
The Cunard Steamship Co._ ]

The echoes of that fierce struggle between the Cunarders’ and the
Collins’ boats have now died away, or have been quite lost in the other
clamorous cries of that wonder of the world, the development of
the transatlantic steamship traffic; but apparently partisanship ran
very high. The Collins’ seem to have been slightly the faster vessels,
coming from America in 9 days 17 hours, but occupying nearly two more
days to return. Alas, disaster overtook them. The _Arctic_ perished by
collision; the _Pacific_ was lost at sea, and no one knows the story
of her death, for she was never heard of more. Bad management, and
extravagance surged over the remaining vessels, and the fine ships went
as old iron!

But the Inman line had also begun to run, about 1850. These ships, like
the _Great Britain_, were built of iron and propelled by a screw. The
first was the _City of Glasgow_, and several famous “Cities” followed;
though years afterwards the Inman line became the “American,” and
the appellation “City” was dropped, the ships being simply known as
_Paris_, _New York_, _Berlin_, etc. The Inman line had the distinction
of being the first, apart from the _Great Britain_, to use iron screw
steamers regularly on the Atlantic. Other lines soon followed, the
Anchor, the Allan, and the Guion, while the Cunarders, not to be
beaten, came along in due course with iron and screw steamers.

But great changes were at hand. To mark these changes let us look at
what may be called the culminating ship of the old type of steamers—the
_Great Eastern_.

This historical vessel was the largest ever built. She was 680 feet
long, by 83 feet broad, and her hull was 60 feet high, 70 feet
including bulwarks. But the steam pressure of her engines was only
from 15 to 25 lbs. She was fitted with both screw-propeller and paddle
wheels. Her screw-propeller engines were of 4000 indicated horse-power,
and paddle of 2600, but they could together work up to 11,000
horse-power.

Commenced at Millwall early in 1854, she was not launched until near
upon four years later. The launching itself was a difficult and
expensive business, costing £60,000, and only effected after various
attempts extending over nearly three months. The total cost of the
vessel has been estimated at £732,000.

[Illustration:

ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL. _By permission of Messrs. Graves & Co._ ]

It will be seen at once that so large an outlay required an immense
business to yield a satisfactory return, and indeed, financial
difficulties hampered her success almost from the very commencement,
even before she was launched.

She was planned, in 1852, by the great engineer, I. K. Brunel, and by
Scott Russell. In the life of Brunel by his son, it is stated:—“It was,
no doubt, his connection with the Australian Mail Company that led Mr.
Brunel to work out into practical shape the idea of a great ship for
the Indian or Australian service.”

The Eastern Steam Navigation Company desired a vessel to trade to
Australia and back, large enough to carry a sufficiency of coal for the
outward and homeward journey, and yet to have space for a goodly number
of passengers and a bulky amount of cargo.

That was the idea, and we perhaps can hardly realise what a difficulty
this question of coal carrying capacity was in those days, before
the problem had been solved by high-pressure steam boilers, triple
expansion engines, improved condensation, and quick passages. Even so
great a philosopher as Dr. Lardner could not believe in 1835 that a
steamship could voyage from Liverpool to New York without stopping—we
presume for fresh fuel.

The _Great Eastern_, therefore, was planned to carry 15,000 tons of
coal; whereas now the large Atlantic liner _Paris_ needs only 2700 tons
for her Atlantic trip. The difference is most striking, for the _Paris_
is one of the largest steamships afloat, but her working steam pressure
is 150 lbs. instead of the 15 or 25 lbs. of the _Great Eastern_.

This immense vessel was also planned to carry some 5000 persons, or
about 500 less if any large number were to require state-rooms, and
finally she was to convey 5000 tons of cargo. The idea of water-tight
compartments was anticipated in her case, even to the extent of
longitudinal ones, and she had half-a-dozen masts of which five were of
iron.

When at length she was launched, the directors’ minds misgave them
as to an Australian trip, and they determined to cross the Atlantic
instead, for a trial voyage. She started on the 8th of September,
1859, but alas! when off Hastings some steam pipes burst. Several
persons were killed and wounded, and the voyage ended at Portland.

Next year she tried again and crossed in eleven days, after which she
made several voyages with success—on one occasion conveying soldiers to
Canada. Unfortunately for the owners, however, she did not pay.

Then in 1865 she began to be engaged in submarine telegraph work, by
which she will most likely be best remembered, and two years later she
was chartered to convey passengers from America to Havre for the French
Exhibition, but this scheme failed.

Then for some years from 1869 she was successfully engaged in
cable-laying, in the Red Sea, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean,
etc., after which she came down to be a coal hulk in 1884, stationed at
Gibraltar.

At length she was sold for £26,200 at London, by auction, and was on
view in the Thames, and also in the Mersey. At this latter river her
huge sides were used as an advertising “board” for a Liverpool business
house. Again in November, 1888, she was sold by auction, this time for
breaking up, and it is said that the total proceeds of the sale which
lasted five days was £58,000, more than double what she had previously
brought!

“A ship before her time,” says some one, thinking of the huge vessels
of the last decade of the nineteenth century. That is true, but the
immense space required for coal, and her low-pressure engines, had
also something to do with her comparative failure. The problem which
the _Great Eastern_ failed to solve has been met in other ways—viz.,
by the use of high-pressure steam and compound, triple-expansion and
even quadruple-expansion engines. That is, the steam, working at 150 or
160 lbs. pressure, instead of the 25 lbs. of the _Great Eastern_, is
passed through two, three, and even four cylinders respectively, and
the economy in coal consumption is astounding. Thus the use of triple
expansion engines has brought the saving in coal down from 4 lbs. per
indicated horse-power to less than 1½ lbs.

There have been many other improvements also, such as the use of steel
instead of iron, the parts being thus stronger and yet lighter; the
circular tubular boiler enabling high-pressure steam to be economically
produced and maintained; the use of surface condensers, by which the
exhaust steam is quickly reduced to water and returned to a “hot well”
ready for the boilers, to be speedily again raised to high pressure
steam; and a forced draught by which the furnaces are made to roar
furiously and heat the water in the boilers speedily.

[Illustration: THE “GREAT EASTERN.”]

But these things were not all attained in a day. The introduction of
the compound marine engines in 1854-56 by John Elder, marks the first
great step of the new departure. In 1856 he engined vessels for the
Pacific Steam Navigation Company, on the compound principle, which
proved very satisfactory.

Again in 1870, the appearance of the White Star liner _Oceanic_, marked
a new development. Her yacht-like shape, great length, and general
symmetry of form commenced a marked change in Atlantic liners.

It was in 1867 that Mr. T. H. Ismay bought the interest of the managing
owner of the White Star line—a set of sailing clippers, dating from
the rush to the Australian gold diggings—and began to introduce iron
vessels instead of wooden clipper ships. In 1869 he established the
Oceanic Steam Navigation Company—popularly known as the White Star—and
was later on joined by Mr. William Imrie. The Company was started with
so much wisdom and boldness that the £1000 shares were privately taken
up at once. The order for the new steamers was given to Harland &
Wolff, of Belfast, because, it is said, an influential share-holder had
had satisfactory dealings with them before.

The _Oceanic_ was of 3600 tons burthen, and with engines of 3000
horse-power. The accommodation for first-class passengers was placed
amidships, where the motion of the vessel is said to be felt the least,
and altogether she embodied improvements which made her the type of
many of the Atlantic passenger ships since. The earlier White Stars
were fitted with compound engines, and reduced the passage to about 8½
days.

But when the White Stars _Germanic_ and _Britannic_ appeared in 1877,
then a marked advance indeed was made in the Atlantic record. The
_Britannic_ astonished the world by speeding from Queenstown to New
York in 7 days, 10 hours, and 50 minutes, and since then she has beaten
her own record. Her sister ship _Germanic_ also did as well, and the
fierce race for the blue ribbon of the Atlantic may be said to have
begun.

It was even prophesied that the time across the water might be reduced
to six days. How has that been fulfilled?




CHAPTER V.

BEFORE THE FURNACE.


“The record’s broken again, Jemmy! The White Star has come home a
couple of hours earlier!”

“She has, has she? Well, it will be the Cunard’s turn next week. It’s
wonderful what they get out of the Cunard’s engines.”

“They do; but I’m thinking the American’s _New York_ will be doin’ the
fastest bit.”

“Well, well, it may be. They’re all main powerful vessels. Do you mind
when the Guion’s _Alaska_ came home in 6 days, 18 hours, 37 minutes?”

“I do, and about ten years later, I suppose, some ships were doing it
in about a day less time!”

“Ay, ay, and I see they’re goin’ ahead down south too.”

“Yes, there’s fast steaming all over the world, Jemmy!”

“I told you what would happen when the compound engine came into use. I
said, ‘Mark my words, now they’ve got the compound engine, they will go
ahead’—and they have.”

Jemmy’s prediction has been amply verified, for almost every year since
the compound engine came largely into use, has witnessed a greater
speed in ocean steamers.

And the speed has not been obtained at sacrifice of comfort. On the
contrary, an ocean passenger steamer belonging to any of the great
passenger lines is something like a floating palace.

After the _Britannic_ and _Germanic_ appeared, line after line put
forth fine vessels; and in 1889 was launched the White Star steamer
_Teutonic_, which for some time held the proud position of the
fastest ship on the Atlantic. She had crossed in 5 days, 16 hours,
31 minutes. The average of several trips, both for herself and her
sister _Majestic_, was 5 days, 18 hours, 6 minutes. And they were run
very close by the American liners, _Paris_ and _New York_. These four
vessels were among the first propelled by twin-screws. Engineers began
to see that it was better to use great power in two shafts and two
propellers than in one.

In July, 1892, the fine Inman (now called American) liner _Paris_
crossed the Atlantic in 5 days, 15 hours, and 58 minutes, and in
October of the same year the same vessel steamed from Liverpool,
touching as usual at Queenstown, in 6 days, 2 hours, and 24
minutes—including the time at the Irish port. This was then the
quickest time on record for the entire journey. From Queenstown to
Sandy Hook the time was 5 days, 14 hours, and 24 minutes, a gain of 1
hour and 34 minutes on her voyage in the previous July. Her best day’s
run was 530 knots.

The contest, therefore, between the two White Stars and the two Inmans
has been very close, the record time resting now with the one and then
with the other.

But the Cunard Company, not to be beaten, put on the _Campania_ in
1893, and in April of that year she made the fastest maiden trip then
on record, one day indeed compassing 545 knots in the 24 hours.

The _Campania_ is 625 feet long by 65¼ feet broad, and 43 feet deep
from the upper deck. Her gross tonnage is 12,950. She is fitted with a
cellular double bottom extending fore and aft, and also with sixteen
bulkheads, so arranged that the vessel would float even if two, or in
some cases three, compartments were open to the ocean.

She is a twin-screw vessel, fitted with two sets of very powerful
triple-expansion engines. They are seated in two separate engine-rooms
with a dividing bulkhead and water-tight doors.

Each set of engines has five inverted cylinders—viz., two
high-pressure, one intermediate, and two low-pressure—all arranged to
work on three cranks set at an angle of 120 degrees to each other. Her
indicated horse-power is 30,000. The boiler-rooms are doubly cased, the
space between being fitted with nonconducting material for sound and
heat.

[Illustration: HIGH AND LOW PRESSURE CYLINDERS OF THE “CAMPANIA’S”
ENGINES.]

In this huge vessel four decks rise tier above tier, beside erections
on the upper deck, known as promenade and shade decks. These four
principal decks are the orlop, the lowest of all, used for cargo,
stores, and machinery; the lower, the main, and the upper decks, the
last three being devoted entirely to passengers.

Imagine yourself on the upper deck. Before you stretches the long
vista of its length, like some far-reaching walk ashore; a circuit of
the vessel four times makes a mile. Above rises the shade deck with
the navigating apparatus, and surrounded by the twenty lifeboats of
the vessel; above again is the captain’s bridge, where are placed the
telegraph and wheel house, while higher still is perched the crow’s
nest or look-out box, on the foremast, and about 100 feet from the
water-level. Give a glance, too, at the huge funnels, 120 feet high,
and so large that when in the builder’s yard a coach full of passengers
was driven with four horses through one of them.

Descending then, the grand staircase, which is sufficiently wide for
six persons to walk down abreast, and admiring the polished panelling,
the rich Japanese paper, and the lounges on the landings, we enter the
superb dining-saloon 100 feet long by 62 feet broad. Four huge tables
run almost along its length, with smaller tables in the corners, while
the wood-carving, carpeting, gold decorated roof, costly mirrors, and
upholstering in rich red velvet are of the most sumptuous description.

From this magnificent hall you can wander on through other apartments
of great splendour, drawing-room, library, smoking, music room,
bath-rooms, and numbers of state-rooms. There are single berth, double
berth, and three and four berth cabins—the old wooden benches for beds,
however, being replaced by iron bed-steads throughout the ship. The
electric light glows everywhere, being distributed by some fifty miles
of wire.

[Illustration:

THE “CAMPANIA.” _By permission of The Cunard Steamship Co._ ]

The second-class accommodation differs but in degree from the
magnificence of the saloon, while the steerage passengers are berthed
on the lower deck, but have the privilege of walking on the upper deck.
An additional idea of the size of the ship may be gained when we learn
that the crew consists of over 420 persons—viz., 190 engineers, 179
stewards, and 54 sailing hands, while the vessel’s full complement
of passengers brings up the total number of persons aboard to 1600
souls—quite a floating town indeed.

About five years after the birth of the _Teutonic_ the newspapers
recorded, in May, 1894, that the _Lucania_, sister ship to the
_Campania_, and one of the newest Cunarders, had performed the journey
across the Atlantic in 5 days, 13 hours, and 28 minutes. Her average
speed was 22¼ knots, or 25·7 land miles per hour, marking one of the
quickest runs then ever recorded; and about the same time came the news
that the P. & O. steamer _Himalaya_ had completed a mail transit from
Bombay of 12½ days, and as her voyage to Bombay had been just over 13
days—the best outward passage—she had completed a round mail transit to
Bombay and back, excluding stoppages, of 25½ days.

A little later, in the same year, the torpedo-boat destroyer, _Hornet_,
built by Messrs. Yarrow & Co., of Poplar, for the British Navy,
achieved, it is said, about 27 knots; that is, roughly speaking, near
to 29 or 30 miles an hour, which speed proclaimed her to be then
one of the fastest steamships in the world. She was fitted with the
Yarrow water-tube boilers, which are both light and strong, while the
consumption of coal was said to be remarkably small. She has two sets
of triple-expansion inverted engines.

Again, a short time later, Messrs. Thorneycroft, of Chiswick, obtained
similar results with the _Daring_, another boat of the same kind built
for the British Government, and fitted with the Thorneycroft improved
water-tube boilers. These, it is claimed, will raise steam from cold
water in fifteen minutes. She passed the measured mile on the Maplin at
the high speed of 29¼ miles an hour.

In the same summer a Company put on a fine steamer for service on
the Thames and the English Channel, called _La Marguerite_, which
developed, it is said, a speed of 25 miles an hour, which would make
her one of the fastest passenger vessels then afloat.

Another Company has also a noteworthy vessel running on the Estuary
of the Thames—viz., the _London Belle_, plying from London Bridge to
Clacton-on-Sea. She is a triple-expansion paddle boat, and the first
river steamer fitted with three crank triple-expansion paddle engines.
She was built by Denny of Dumbarton, and can develop a speed of 19½
knots—_i.e._, twenty-three statute miles per hour, and is worked with
great economy of coal consumption.

An example of a quadruple-expansion engine steamer may be found in the
_Tantallon Castle_, one of the newest vessels for voyaging to South
Africa. She is 456 feet long, over 50 broad, with a gross tonnage
of 5636. She is fitted with quadruple-expansion engines of 7500
horse-power, and the stoke holes are well ventilated by large fans
speeding round with great swiftness.

Improvements in steamship building had gone steadily on; and it is safe
to say that a pound of coal, after the compounding principle came fully
into use, did four or five times the work it accomplished before high
pressure engines were fully utilised.

Let us enter the engine-room of a big liner, and see for ourselves. It
is a triumph of engineering. Still, at first, you cannot understand
anything of the complicated mass of machinery. Then you notice three
large cylinders—for these are triple-expansion engines—with pistons
shooting in and out downwards, and attached by connecting rods to the
cranks of the propeller shaft below. The cranks are bent at different
angles so that they can never all be in the same position at once.
There is a maze of machinery and shining rods, bewildering to the
uninitiated eye. But you gradually notice how absolutely regular every
part is in its action, and how beautifully one part fits with another.

Then go before the furnace; you find yourself in front of a huge
structure, at the bottom of which is the long fire box; above rises the
heat box communicating with tubes over the furnaces, with the water
circulating between. The water, indeed, is beneath the furnace, about
parts of the heat box, between and above the tubes. The object is,
of course, to obtain as great heating surface as possible. The tubes
communicate with the funnel at their other end. Boilers are made of
a “mild” steel which has, it is said, a most remarkable tenacity of
28 tons to the square inch. Consequently they are able to bear great
pressure of steam.

[Illustration: STOKE HOLE.]

Hot distilled water is admitted to the boiler from the surface
condenser. This is a “box,” riddled with tubes, through which cold
sea water is pumped. The waste steam, having done its work in the
cylinders, is passed into this “box,” is condensed by touching the
chilly tubes of sea water, and can be run off or pumped to a hot
cistern, whence it is used to feed the boiler and be turned once more
to steam. About 4000 tons of water an hour pass through the surface
condensers of a large liner when she is at full work.

The largest steamers require over 150 men to work the furnaces and
machinery, and the attention given is hard and unremitting. In some of
the fast Atlantic greyhounds the strain is terribly severe, especially
when the sea is beginning to run high. The rollers may be but 20 feet,
yet these are quite high enough even for a splendid ocean racer to
contend with and yet maintain her speed.

Now her bows are pointing sky high, and her stern is deeply submerged;
now she takes a header plump into the trough of the sea, and the
engines race round; the propeller is suddenly raised out of water.
But blow high, or blow low, on she goes, and the engineers are always
busy. The furnaces roar with ceaseless rage. For days and nights the
fires are kept at glowing heat. A forced blast maintains the draught;
the steam condensed back into warm water is supplied to the boilers;
half-naked men work hour after hour to rake the fires, clean them, pile
on the fuel, and keep the most powerful head of steam the boilers can
stand.

When the furnace doors are opened tongues of flame leap forth, and
the heat is enough to make a man sick. But with head turned away, the
stoker stirs up the fire with his huge “slice” or fire rake, and cleans
out the clinker clogging the bars.

Then on go the coals! One layer, shot in from the shovel with unerring
precision and skilful experience, right at the back; then another just
in front of the first, and so on till the long furnace is filled.
Bang! the furnace door clangs, and the man reels away, sick and
exhausted, with tingling eyes and heaving chest. Then coal has to be
brought from the bunkers to the furnaces, tons of it per day, and if
the ship rolls too much for the barrows to be used, the fuel must be
carried in baskets.

There is an engineer in charge of each stoke hole, and two on the
platform in each engine room; as a rule, the staff are on duty in
turns—four hours out of every twelve. But if the weather be bad they
may have harder times.

No matter how hot the machinery becomes, the engineers must not
reduce speed, except it be to prevent disaster. Oil is swabbed on in
bucketfuls, so to speak, but at every thrust the polished steel may
gleam dry and smoking. Then on goes the water, as if there actually was
a conflagration, and meantime a mixture of oil and sulphur is dabbed
on. The water flies off in steam, so hot are the bearings, so terrific
the friction of the incessant speed; and at last, down comes the
reluctant order, wrung out of the chief like gold from a miser—“Slow
her down.”

It is done—dampers are clapped on furnaces, steam pressure dropped a
little, and engines reduced to half speed; the three great cranks of
the high, intermediate, and low pressure cylinders move round easily,
and the tremendous noise gradually sinks to a murmur, compared with the
previous rush and roar. The machinery cools. But when quite safe, on
is piled the speed once more, and again the cranks fly round, and the
mighty engines work their hardest to drive the mammoth ship through the
surging green rollers.

So superbly are these marine engines built, and so excellently are they
maintained, being continually overhauled, so as to be kept in the pink
of perfection, that, as years go on, they seem to “warm to their work”
and do even better than at first.

On the completion of the 200th round voyage of the celebrated “White
Stars,” _Germanic_ and _Britannic_, about January, 1894, they seemed
steaming as regularly and as fast, or faster than ever. Thus, on the
198th outward trip of the _Germanic_, in September, 1893, she made the
fastest westward passage, but one, she had ever accomplished. During
their lives, it was said these vessels had maintained remarkable
uniformity in speed, and each vessel had steamed 200 times 6200
nautical miles, that is nearly a million and a-half statute miles, with
the original engines and boilers—a performance, in all probability,
without parallel in the world.

Those people who care for figures may be interested in knowing that
the _Britannic_ had been 91,741 hours under steam, and 85,812 hours
actually under weigh. Her engines had made 280 million revolutions, and
maintained an average speed of 15 knots, or 17¼ statute miles an hour,
while she had burnt 406,000 tons of coal. During their nineteen years
of life the two vessels had carried 100,000 saloon, and over 260,000
steerage passengers, in safety and in comfort.

This is a record of which all concerned, builders, owners, and working
staff, may well be proud. It augurs first-class, honest work, and
superb engineering skill. Since the construction of these ships,
however, vessels surpassing them in speed have, of course, been built,
among which may be mentioned the same line’s _Teutonic_ and _Majestic_.

The well-known Cunarders, _Umbria_ and _Etruria_, have also done some
very fine work, indicating great excellence of construction. Thus,
on her eighty-second voyage, the _Umbria_ steamed from Queenstown to
Sandy Hook in 5 days, 22 hours; or, allowing for detention through fog,
5 days, 18½ hours, which is within three or four hours of the White
Stars’ and American’s time.

The story of the British warship _Calliope_, at Samoa, will also show
how marvellously well ships’ engines can be built. Some difficulties
had arisen between the United States and Germany as to Samoa, and
several warships had gathered there. Some weeks of bad weather had
occurred, and then, on the 15th of March, 1889, the wind began to blow
with tremendous force. Down came the top masts from the warships—taken
down as a precaution; steam was raised in the boilers in case anchors
should not hold, and spars were made secure. But no man among the
sailors expected such a hurricane as ensued.

Rain fell at midnight, and the wind increased. Huge waves rolled in
from the South Pacific, and the vessels tugged madly at their anchor
chains and pitched fearfully up and down, like corks. Then the _Eber_,
one of the German ships, began to drag her anchors; and the _Vandalia_,
one of the Americans, followed suit. But by their steam power they kept
off a dangerous reef, and also prevented themselves from colliding with
their neighbours.

Still higher and higher blew the hurricane, and the rain fell with
tropic severity. Three hours after midnight the situation had become
terrible. Almost every vessel was dragging her anchors, and the danger
of collision was constant.

The scene of the occurrence was a small bay before Apia, the capital
of Samoa. But there is a coral reef extending in front of the bay
for about two miles, and in the centre of the reef an opening about
a quarter of a mile wide. The ships, therefore, were shut up in a
comparatively small space, from which the way of escape was this
gateway through the reef. The tide rushed in with great rapidity,
swamping the land a hundred feet or so above high-water mark.

As morning dawned and wore on to-day, the _Eber_ collided with the
_Nipsic_ and then with the _Olga_, and, finally, was dashed by the huge
waves, like a toy, upon the reef, and rolled over into deep water.
Only five men struggled to shore and were saved. Other sad disasters
occurred; and then, shortly before noon, the _Vandalia_ and the
_Calliope_ were tossed perilously near together, and also toward the
dangerous reef. In endeavouring to steam away, the _Vandalia_ collided
with the _Calliope_, and was much damaged. Then, with splendid courage,
Captain Kane determined to steam right away to sea—to remain would but
risk another collision, or a wreck on the reef. Sea-room he must have
at any cost!

“Lift all anchors!” was the thrilling order, and then—“Full speed
ahead!” Round swung the vessel’s head to the wind, and though the
powerful engines were working “all they knew” to force the ship along,
the steamer stood still, as if aghast at being asked to break through
these tremendous waves.

But she stood for a moment only. The superb engines began to tell;
the quickly-whirling screw churned up the heavy water at the stern,
and slowly the good ship made headway through the huge billows. They
crashed over her stern and poured over her decks, as if in anger at her
defiance. But on went the coal to her furnaces, and the thick smoke
reeled off from the funnel in volumes. The strain quivered through
every limb of the ship, but her captain kept her at it, and inch by
inch she forced her way through the pounding seas.

“This manœuvre of the gallant British ship,” says an eye-witness, Mr.
John P. Dunning, of the Associated U.S. Press, “is regarded as one
of the most daring in naval annals. It was the one desperate chance
offered her commander to save his vessel and the three hundred lives
aboard. An accident to the machinery at this critical moment would have
meant certain death to all. Every pound of steam which the _Calliope_
could possibly carry was crowded on, and down in the fire-rooms the
men worked as they never had worked before. To clear the harbour, the
_Calliope_ had to pass between the _Trenton_ (an American warship)
and the reef, and it required the most skilful seamanship to avoid a
collision with the _Trenton_, on the one hand, or total destruction
upon the reef, on the other. The _Trenton’s_ fires had gone out by that
time, and she lay helpless almost in the path of the _Calliope_.”

[Illustration: PROMENADE DECK OF THE “PARIS.”]

But the dreaded collision did not take place. And as the _Calliope_
passed near to the _Trenton_, a great shout was given for the British
vessel, and the Englishmen responded with a noble cheer. Captain Kane,
who subsequently was appointed to the _Inflexible_, said afterwards:

“Those ringing cheers of the American flag-ship pierced deep into my
heart, and I shall ever remember that mighty outburst of fellow-feeling
which, I felt, came from the bottom of the hearts of the gallant
Admiral and his men. Every man on board the _Calliope_ felt as I did;
it made us work to win. I can only say, ‘God bless America and her
noble sailors!’”

The _Calliope_ did win. Her superb machinery and the fine seamanship
with which she was handled were successful, and she returned to the
harbour when the storm had subsided. Happily the brave men of the
_Trenton_ also survived, though fourteen vessels were wrecked and
nearly 150 lives were lost.

Strongly and staunchly as are built the Government ships, many of the
great liners are their equals in these respects. Indeed, several of
them are now retained by the Government to be used as armed cruisers
should occasion require. The fittings and accommodation on many a
large liner are also luxurious in the extreme. There are library
and smoking-room, superb saloons and state-rooms, drawing-rooms,
music-rooms, and tea-rooms, bath-rooms, etc. In short, they are
floating hotels of a most sumptuous character.

A modern steamship, with its multitude of comforts and conveniences
for passengers and its complexities of machinery for fast and safe
steaming, is a great triumph of engineering skill. Patience and
forethought, the persevering development of sound principles, and
the application of new ideas, have all contributed to this great
achievement.

From the _Comet_ to the _Campania_ is a marvellous development within
a century. And it has not been accomplished along one line, but upon
many. The use of steel, of many-tubed and strong boilers, of high
pressure steam, which would have frightened Henry Bell out of his
senses, the forced draught and the surface condensers, the screw
propeller, the direct-acting and the triple and quadruple expansion
engines, have all contributed to the noble results. Steamships, with
their complex, beautiful, and powerful machinery, may rank among the
most wonderful things that mankind has ever made.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]


FAMOUS BRIDGES AND THEIR BUILDERS.




CHAPTER I.

“THE BRIDGE BY THE EARTHEN HOUSE.”


“You will not try again, surely?”

“Ay, I shall indeed!”

“What! after two failures?”

“Yes; I see the mistakes now. This bridge fell because it had too much
weight on its haunches.”

“Haunches! you mean the two side-curves of the arch were too heavy.”

“Ay; you’ve heard the proverb no doubt that ‘An arch never sleeps.’
That is, should too great a weight fall on the crown or top part, the
arch will fall at the sides outwardly, and the crown will sink; while,
curiously enough, if it be built with too little weight on the crown,
as this was, the crown will be forced upwards, and the sides will fall
inwards.”

“Then you mean to build your third bridge with less weight
proportionately on its haunches?”

“Exactly so.”

“Well, I wish you good luck, friend Edwards, for we need a bridge
sorely over the brawling Taff.”

“You shall have it, neighbour. I shall succeed this time. I have
gripped the right principle at last.”

He had indeed, for the bridge he then built lasts to this day. It was
the famous Pontypridd bridge over the Taff on the Llantrissant and
Merthyr road, and was called the Pont y du Prydd, or the bridge by the
earthen house, for a mud hut stood near.

[Illustration:

PONTYPRIDD BRIDGE. _From Encyclopædia Britannica._ ]

About the year 1745 it was determined to build a bridge over the
rushing Taff, and William Edwards, a self-taught mason of the country,
undertook the task. The first bridge he built was of three arches,
which, in less than three years, was dashed away by a great flood. The
water rose so high as to surge over the parapet.

It must have been a sore disappointment to the hard worker to see his
structure suddenly swept to ruins. But he was a shrewd, common-sense,
observing man, and, nothing daunted, he tried again. This time he
determined to build one bold arch of 140 feet. The object was to
obviate the necessity of raising piers for more arches, and so
obstructing the water; these former piers having caused, or assisted
in causing, the destruction of his first bridge.

But the second gave way from the proportionally heavy weights on the
haunches, as Edwards, we imagine, told his friend, and once more he had
to face ruins. Yet a third time he tried, and the third time he was
successful. Generations have come and gone, the children who played
about its abutments have grown grey and have passed away, but still the
country mason’s bridge of 140 feet span stands its ground and serves
the community.

He reduced the heavy weight on the sides by making openings in the
spandrels—that is, the part above the curve of the arch; while, instead
of filling up the interior space with rubble, he used charcoal. But the
arch is very steep, and a chain and drag is kept to assist any horse
when descending.

These bridges illustrate the principle of the arch. Passing by the
fact that it is evidently safer to span a swelling river by a bridge
of wide, rather than of several narrow arches, three powers or forces
act on the row of stones or bricks forming the arch. There is first the
force that would carry the stone downward—that is, the force of its own
weight and of anything that might be placed upon it. But then there are
stones or bricks pressing against it on either side, and in its turn it
presses upon them. When, therefore, every part presses equally, one not
heavier or weaker than the others, a support for all is gained by the
contiguous pressure and by the balance of forces.

Long bridges were sometimes built in this way, and the longest in
England in the Middle Ages was at Burton, over the Trent. It was 1545
feet long, and had 36 arches. It was not superseded till 1864, when a
new bridge was built.

In an arched bridge, the higher it rises in proportion to the width of
the arch, the easier is its construction, and the less is the stress
upon its parts; moreover, any inaccuracy in design or in building is
likely to be less harmful. We are not surprised, therefore, that
Edwards, in his third attempt, decided upon that form.

One of the widest arches in the world is that of the famous Grosvenor
Bridge at Chester. It has a span of 200 feet, with a rise of 42 feet.
An arch, however, in the Washington Aqueduct extends to 220 feet span,
while the central span in the Southwark Bridge, designed by Rennie, is
240 feet. This last, however, is of cast-iron.

The principle of the arch, however, does not appear first in the
history of bridge building. Bridges are as old as mankind; that is, no
one knows when first men began to cross streams and chasms by placing
the trunk of a tree from one side to the other, and thus bridging the
gulf.

Then, possibly, the next step was to build up a pile of stones in the
centre of the stream—taking the stones there by coracle or canoe—and
placing a tree trunk from the side to the central heap.

Yet another development would most likely be a simple cantilever
bridge—though these early builders would not have known that
Frenchified word. But they knew that after embedding a tree trunk
firmly on each side of the bank so that a considerable portion should
project over the stream, they could place a third log from one end to
the other, and thus get a bridge much longer than when made of one tree
trunk alone.

This principle, known so long ago, was used and immensely developed in
the construction of the famous Forth Bridge, one of the most remarkable
structures of the nineteenth century. This cantilever principle is
very important in bridge building, and it is said that there exists an
ancient bridge on this principle across the Sutlej in India with a span
of 200 feet.

[Illustration: THE POST BRIDGE, DARTMOOR.

(_An example of an early bridge, of “slab” construction._)]

A further variety of early bridges was the “slab” bridge, consisting
of slabs of granite placed from side to side, or from the sides of
the bank to heaps of stones piled up in the stream. A good example
of such a bridge may be seen at “Post Bridge” over the Dart on
Dartmoor. Ages ago this bridge was built, and as we study it and
compare it with the modern structure not far distant, we wonder how the
ancient Britons—if those sturdy individuals are really responsible for
it—could raise and place those huge slabs of stone without engineering
apparatus. Probably it was done with levers and rollers, and there must
have been many shoulders to the wheel in the process. Certainly they
had plenty of granite at hand on wild Dartmoor.

But passing by all these early forms of bridges—which it will be
noticed are built of a few large pieces of material—it was left to
the Romans, at all events in Europe, to largely adopt the arch as a
principle of construction.

Now, here we are dealing with an altogether different principle. The
arch is made up of a number of comparatively small pieces of material
bound together by mortar, or cement, or even clamps, and by the power
of gravitation.

We doubt if that idea is realised by half the people using the
multitudinous arches abounding to-day; yet it is true. Or to put it in
another way, the various parts are arranged so that they keep up each
other by pressure.

If you take two cards, or bricks, or slabs of stone and lean them
together at the top, while the other ends may be far apart, you will
find they will bear a certain amount of weight. Here you have the
principle of the arch in its simplest form; and it may be that out of
that primitive performance the arch has grown. This kind of triangular
arch is to be met with in ancient structures in Great Britain. The
flanks or haunches of an arch are its sides, from the first stone to
the keystone; and the crown is its highest part; while the central
wedge-shaped piece of stone or brick is called the keystone.

The stones or bricks are cemented together when being built over a
framework of timber, called the centering, and when the keystone is
placed and the arch is complete it ought to remain firm.

But should too great a weight fall on the crown the bridge will fall
outwardly at the sides, and the crown will sink; while, curiously
enough, if it be built with too little weight on the crown, it will be,
as it were, forced upwards, and the sides will fall inwards, as in the
case of the second of the famous Pontypridd bridges, which actually did
this. The material in the middle of the arch was less in proportion
than that over the sides or “haunches,” and these heavier weights on
the sides caused the crown to be forced upwards.

Two causes combined to make changes in bridge building. These were the
needs of railways and the introduction of iron as a building material.
The first iron bridge was constructed over the Severn, near an
appropriately named place, Ironbridge, in 1779. It had an arch of near
upon a hundred feet span.

When, however, very wide span bridges were required, the question
arose of the superiority of wrought-iron over cast-iron for such
structures. The Menai Strait had to be crossed for the Chester and
Holyhead Railway, and the greatest existing cast-iron span was Rennie’s
Southwark Bridge, where 240 feet had been reached. But over the Conway
and the Menai Strait, spans of 400 feet were involved. How were these
yawning gulfs to be bridged?




CHAPTER II.

A NEW IDEA—THE BRITANNIA TUBULAR.


“We must cross the Strait at the Britannia Rock—that is settled.”

“And where is the Britannia Rock?”

“Nearly in mid-channel. It seems placed there for the purpose.”

And the great engineer smiled.

“What are the distances?”

“From coast to coast the span of the Strait is some 1100 feet, with
that rock in the centre. Now the problem is, to build a bridge across
that gulf of surging water strong enough to bear heavy trains at high
speeds, and sufficiently above the water to prevent any interference
with navigation.”

“And how will you manage it?”

“First I thought of large cast-iron arches, but they will not do. I
doubt if they would stand the strain; and moreover we should impede
navigation by raising scaffolding during the building. At length I came
to the idea of a tube bridge.”

“What! a tube bridge! I’ve never heard of it!”

“No, it is a new idea. By reconsidering a design I had made for a small
bridge over the Lea at Ware in 1841, and thinking over the matter, I
came to the idea that a bridge consisting of a hollow beam or tube
might solve the difficulty.”

“A huge hollow girder, so to speak!” exclaimed his friend.

“Exactly so. Accordingly,” the engineer continued, “I had drawings
prepared and calculations made, by which to ascertain the strength
of such a bridge, and they were so satisfactory that I decided on
attempting one.”

“It is like constructing one huge hollow beam of iron by rivetting
plates together. Can it be done?” remarked his friend.

“The making of the high-level bridge over the Tyne, in which I had
a part—the bridge between Newcastle and Gateshead, you know—was a
transition between an arched bridge and a girder bridge. A girder of
course is a beam, it may be of iron or wood, and the little bridge at
Ware has been built of girders made of plates of wrought-iron rivetted
together. Therefore, you see, I am not unused to wrought-iron girders,
and what they will bear.”

“Why, it is like a huge extension of the primitive log-bridge of our
ancestors.”

“If you like,” replied the engineer, laughing.

Robert Stephenson—for he it is whom we suppose to be speaking to his
friend on this gigantic engineering enterprise—became satisfied by
reflection that the principles involved in constructing an immense
tubular beam were but a development of those commonly in use; and Sir
William Fairbairn was entrusted with the duty of experimenting as to
the strength of tubes, the directors of the Railway Company voting a
sum of money for the purpose.

Sir William, then Mr., Fairbairn concluded that rectangular tubes were
the strongest, and a model was made of the suggested bridge. It proved
successful, and indicated that the tube would be able to stand the
strain of a heavy train passing rapidly over it.

In September, 1846, Mr. Fairbairn read a paper on the subject at
the meeting of the British Association at Southampton, as also did
Professor Hodgkinson, a mathematician, who had verified Fairbairn’s
experiments. Not long afterwards Stephenson became satisfied that
chains were not needed to assist in supporting the bridge, and that his
tubes would be strong enough to support themselves entirely between the
piers.

Work therefore went forward. Some 1500 men were engaged on the
Britannia Bridge, and the quiet shores of the Menai Straits resounded
with the busy hum of hammers and machinery. Cottages of wood were built
for the men, and workshops for the punching and rivetting of the plates
for the gigantic tubes.

The design included two abutments of masonry on either side of the
Strait, and three towers or huge piers, one of which, the centre pier,
was to rise from the Britannia Rock, 230 feet high. There are four
spans, two over the water of 460 feet each, and two of 230 feet each
over the land. Two tubes, quite independent of each other, but lying
side by side, form the bridge across. Each tube or beam is 1510 feet
long, and weighs 4680 tons. Its weight at one of the long spans is
1587 tons.

Now how could these gigantic tubes be put together and raised to their
positions? Here was a problem almost as great as the original one of
the bridge itself, and it troubled the engineer sorely.

[Illustration: ROBERT STEPHENSON.]

“Often at night,” he declared, “I would lie tossing about, seeking
sleep in vain. The tubes filled my head. I went to bed with them, and
got up with them. In the gray of the morning, when I looked across
Gloucester Square, it seemed an immense distance across to the houses
on the opposite side. It was nearly the same length as the span of my
tubular bridge.”

The principle adopted was to construct the shorter tubes on scaffolds
in the places which they were to occupy. This could be done, for such
scaffolding would not impede navigation. But scaffolding could not be
built for the large tubes across the great spans of water. What then
was to be done?

It was decided to build them on platforms on the shore quite close
to the water, and float them when ready on pontoons to their places
between the piers, raising them to their position by hydraulic power.
Such a task would be hazardous enough. It was first tried at Conway,
where a similar bridge was being built by Robert Stephenson, being
indeed part of the same railway. The Britannia was, however, a much
greater enterprise, though the span of the Conway is 400 feet. The
Conway bridge, indeed, is but of one span, and contains two tubes.

The experience at Conway was of great benefit to the gigantic
undertaking at the Menai Strait. The floating of the first tube was to
take place on the 19th of June, 1849, in the evening; but owing to some
of the machinery having given way, the great event was put off to the
next night. The shores were crowded with spectators. When the tube was
finished it could be transferred to the pontoons; for the tubes had
been built at high-water mark. When the pontoons were fairly afloat on
this fateful evening, they were held and guided by leading strings of
mighty strength. Stephenson himself directed in person, from a point
of vantage at the roof of the tube. Thence he gave the signals which
had been agreed upon, whilst a crew of sailors, directed by Captain
Claxton, manned the strange barque.

A pontoon is a light, buoyant boat, and the tube was supported on sets
of these, their speed increasing terribly as they approached their
place by the towers. The idea was, as related by Mr. Edwin Clark,
Stephenson’s assistant, that they should strike a “butt” properly,
underneath the Anglesey Tower, “on which, as upon a centre, the tube
was to be veered round into its position across the opening. This
position was determined by a twelve-inch line, which was to be paid
out to a fixed mark from the Llanfair capstan. The coils of the rope
unfortunately over-rode each other upon this capstan, so that it could
not be paid out.”

Destruction seemed imminent. The capstan was actually dragged from the
platform, and the tube seemed likely to be swept away. Then Mr. Rolfe,
the captain of the capstan, shouted to the spectators, and threw out a
spare twelve-inch rope. Seizing this, the crowd, with right good-will,
rushed it up the field, and clung tightly to it, checking the voyage of
the mighty tube. It was brought to the “butt,” and duly turned round.

A recess had been left in the masonry of the tower, and the end near
the Britannia pier was drawn into it by means of a chain. The Anglesey
end followed. Then the tide gradually sank, the pontoons sank with it,
and the tube subsided also to a shelf which had been made at either
end. The first stage was accomplished; the mighty tube was in position
to be raised.

Shouts of rejoicing burst from the sympathetic crowds, and the boom of
cannon joined its congratulatory note at the grand success. But the
further stages remained. At midnight the pontoons were all cleared
away, and the huge, hollow beam hung silent over the surging water.
It rested on the shelves or beds prepared for it at either end. The
second great operation, of course, was to haul it up the towers to its
permanent position. This was to be performed by hydraulic machinery of
great power, and Mr. Stephenson’s instructions were to raise it a short
distance at a time, and then build under it.

He took every imaginable precaution against accident or failure; and
well was it that he did so, for an accident happened which, but for the
careful building under the tube in the towers as it was raised, would
have been most calamitous. The accident occurred while Mr. Stephenson
was absent in London. One day, suddenly, while the machinery was at
work raising the tube, the bottom burst from one of the hydraulic
presses, and down fell the tube on to the bed provided for it.

Though the fall was but nine inches, tons weight of metal castings were
crushed, and the mighty tube itself was strained and slightly bent. But
it was serviceable still, and the fact that it stood the strain so well
showed its great strength. It weighed some five thousand tons, and for
such an immense weight to fall even three-quarters of a foot was a very
severe test.

But for Stephenson’s wise precaution in lifting it slowly, and building
underneath it as it was raised, the tube would have crashed to the
bottom of the water. As it was, the accident cost £5000; but the tube
was soon being hauled upward again. In due course the others followed,
and on the 5th of March, 1850, Robert Stephenson inserted the final
rivet in the last tube, and the bridge was complete. He crossed over
with about a thousand persons, three locomotives whirling them along.

The tubes of the bridge are made of iron plates, and at the top and
bottom are a number of small cells or tubes—instead of thick iron
plating—which assist in giving strength to the whole gigantic tube.
Thus it may be said the floor and roof are tubular, as well as the
body. These hollow cells appear to have been Fairbairn’s invention. The
size of the tube grows slightly larger at the middle by the Britannia
tower, where externally the tubes are 30 feet high, and 26 internally,
while they are 22¾ feet and 18¾ feet at the abutments. The width is 14
feet, 8 inches externally, and 13 feet 5 inches inside.

At the Britannia tower the tubes are placed solidly on their bed,
but at the abutments, and at the land towers, the tubes rest on
roller-beds. This arrangement was adopted to permit of expansion and
contraction. Iron, of course, solid and unyielding as it appears, is
yet very susceptible to warmth, and the effect of the sun’s rays on
this massive iron structure is very marked. A rise of temperature
causes it to expand in a comparatively short time, and it is said that
the tubes occasionally move two and a-half inches as the sun gleams
upon them. Mr. Edwin Clark observed the effect of the sun on the iron,
which appears in a small degree to be always moving as the temperature
varies. Well, therefore, that the able engineer planned an arrangement
allowing for this constant expansion and contraction of the iron mass.

[Illustration: THE BRITANNIA TUBULAR BRIDGE.]

The Britannia Bridge was a great triumph for Robert Stephenson. He
appears first to have seized the idea, and, assisted no doubt by
Fairbairn’s experiments and by able coadjutors, he carried it through
to a successful completion. He was of course the son of George
Stephenson, who had done so much for the locomotive, and according to
Smiles, “he almost worshipped his father’s memory, and was ever ready
to attribute to him the chief merit of his own achievements as an
engineer.”

“It was his thorough training,” Mr. Smiles once heard him remark, “his
example, and his character, which made me the man I am.” Further, in an
address as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, in January,
1856, he said: “All I know, and all I have done is primarily due to the
parent whose memory I cherish and revere.”

That father had died before the Britannia Bridge was completed, though
he had been present at the floating of the first tube at Conway. The
great engineer passed away on the 12th of August, 1848, at the age of
sixty-seven, and his distinguished son Robert, who had no children,
only survived him by eleven years.

But before he died he had designed, and Mr. A. M. Ross, who had
assisted at the Conway Bridge, had assisted in carrying out the
celebrated Victoria Tubular Bridge over the great St. Lawrence River at
Montreal.

This bridge was for the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, and for immense
length and vastness of proportions, combined with magnificent strength,
is one of the wonders of the world. It is five times as long as the
Britannia Bridge, being not far short of two miles. It has a big
central span of 330 feet, and twenty-four spans of 242 feet. The iron
tubes are suspended sixty feet above the water beneath.

[Illustration: VICTORIA TUBULAR BRIDGE, MONTREAL.]

One great difficulty in the problem was the ice. Immense quantities
come down in the spring, and to resist this enormous pressure the piers
are most massive, containing thousands of tons each of solid masonry.
These piers are based on the solid rock, the two central towers being
eighteen feet in width and the others fifteen feet. To protect them
from the ice, huge guards made of stone blocks clamped with rivets
built up in the form of an incline were placed before the piers on the
up-stream side. The bridge was begun in July, 1854, and occupied four
and a-half years in construction, it being completed in December,
1859, about two months after its designer had died.

Gigantic though this structure is, and great as is the honour which it
reflects on Robert Stephenson and the resident and joint engineer Mr.
Ross, yet with the exception of the remarkable and massive ice-guards
to the piers, it does not differ materially from the Britannia and
Conway Tubular Bridges. These were the first famous examples of the new
principle.

Why, then, are massive tubular bridges not more generally built?
Because they led to another and very natural development in
bridge-building, a development whereby great strength for long spans is
gained, with, however, a marked saving both in labour and in material.
That development was the lattice bridge.




CHAPTER III.

LATTICE AND SUSPENSION BRIDGES.


“The expense of a tubular bridge would be too great.”

“But if we could get the strength without the expense.”

“What mean you?”

“By iron lattice work we could, I think, gain the stiffness and support
needed, without such great cost of labour and material. In other words,
I propose a lattice or trellis work girder, instead of a solid sided,
or a tubular girder.”

“That is, you would have the sides of lattice or trellis work, instead
of solid plates?”

“Exactly. I would use bars of iron placed diagonally. These lattice or
trellis bridges are developed from the tubular bridges, also from the
loose wooden lattice bridges of America. We make a web of iron instead
of a solid sheet. The same kind of structures are largely used over the
wide rivers of India. Sir John MacNeill designed the first in iron, and
it was built in 1843 on the Dublin and Drogheda Railway with a span
of eighty-four feet. I consider they will be among the most popular
bridges of the future for longish spans.”

The engineer’s prediction has come true; for lattice bridges have
undoubtedly been very widely adopted. We may suppose that he was
advising the directors of a proposed railway, and we doubt not but that
he carried the day.

A fine specimen of a lattice bridge is that across the Thames near
Charing Cross, for the South-Eastern Railway. It has a total length
of more than a quarter of a mile—viz., 1365 feet, and six of its nine
spans are 154 feet wide. Two principal girders, fourteen feet deep,
are connected transversely by other girders which carry the rails and
project on the other side to support a footpath. The two main girders
are nearly fifty feet apart and one weighs 190 tons.

The sides have upper and lower booms made of plate iron connected by
perpendicular bars, between which are a couple of bars crossing each
other diagonally at an angle of forty-five degrees, and fixed to the
booms by bolts of five and seven inches in diameter.

The old Hungerford Bridge stood here previously, and its two piers of
brickwork were used for the new bridge. Other piers are huge cylinders
of cast iron ten feet across, but fourteen feet in diameter in the
ground. Thus they are broadly based. These piers are filled with
concrete and also brickwork, and are topped with bearing-blocks of
granite. They are formed of plates of cast iron bolted together, and
they were sunk into the ground many feet below high-water by combined
forces; divers scooped out the mud and gravel and clay from within the
cylinders; water was pumped out and heavy weights pressed them down.
The piers became fixed on the London clay, but when filled were heavily
weighted to drive them down again, and finally they were forced to a
depth of over sixty-two feet below high-water mark.

But before lattice girder bridges had become so popular, another class
had come into use, and afford some splendid specimens of engineering
skill. These are suspension bridges, and, perhaps of all kinds, they
are the most picturesque. Their graceful sweeps and curves yield
perhaps a more pleasing sight for the eye than the solid, rigid,
straight lines of the girder bridges.

It was the genius of Thomas Telford which gave a great impetus to
this class of bridge. Like Stephenson after him, he had to bridge the
surging Menai Straits, but for a carriage road, not a line of rails;
and at length, after various plans had been suggested and abandoned, he
proposed the Suspension Bridge.

Now, in its simplest form, a suspension bridge has been known for ages.
It is merely a pathway, or even a small movable car, suspended from a
rope or ropes across a chasm. Ulloa describes suspension bridges built
by the Peruvians in South America. Four stout cables span a river, and
on these four is placed the platform of sticks and branches, while two
other ropes connected with the platform are useful as hand rails. Such
bridges sway with the wind and move with the passenger, but for light
loads they appear to be perfectly safe.

In Telford’s Menai Bridge the carriage-way is hung from four huge
chains or cables, each chain made up of four others, and passing over
high piers. The chains are anchored on the landward side, sixty feet
in pits, and grafted by iron frames to the rocks. The chains are so
complex and so strong, that parts may be removed for repair without
imperilling the safety of the structure. The length of the span thus
gained is 560 feet, and it is 150 feet above high-water. The remainder
of the bridge is composed of arches of stone, of 52½ feet span.

The piers from which the great span is suspended rise above the
carriage-way fifty-two feet, and are topped by blocks of cast-iron,
which can move on rollers to permit the chains passing over them
to expand and contract freely with the temperature. There are two
carriage-roads, and also a footpath. The roads are separated by iron
lattice work, which also gives them stability and decreases vibration.

[Illustration: THE CLIFTON BRIDGE.]

In its day, this stupendous bridge was as great a wonder as its later
companion over the same Straits—the Britannia Tubular. Six years were
occupied in building, and it was opened in 1825. Why, then, did not
Stephenson construct a similar bridge when, twenty years or so later,
he had to solve a similar problem?

The answer is, that suspension bridges are not—or were not—considered
sufficiently strong and rigid for railway work. In America, however,
they have been used for this purpose; witness the famous Niagara
Suspension Bridge, 2⅓ miles below the Falls, and with a superb span
of 822 feet; but American engineers appear to stiffen the roadway
considerably, so as to distribute the stress of the rushing train over
a large portion of the cable. The Niagara Bridge is not supported by
plate-link chains, but by four immense wire cables, stretching from
cliff to cliff over the roaring rapids. Four thousand distinct wires
make up each cable, which pass over lofty piers, and from them hangs
the railway by numerous rods.

[Illustration: THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE.]

Probably the famous Brooklyn Bridge is the largest suspension bridge in
the world, even as the Clifton Suspension Bridge, in England, is one
of the most interesting. The Brooklyn Bridge has a magnificent central
span of 1595½ feet over the East River between Brooklyn and New York;
further, there are two land spans of 930 feet, which, together with the
approaches, make up a total of about a mile and a furlong. The cables,
four in number, are each composed of 5000 steel wires, and measure
15¾ inches in diameter. They are anchored to solid stone structures
at either end, measuring 119 feet by 132 feet, and weighing 60,000
tons; while the towers from which the main span is suspended rise to
the height of 276 feet, and are embedded in the ground 80 feet below
high-water. It has been estimated that the weight hung between these
towers is nearly 7000 tons.

The roadway of the bridge is divided into five thoroughfares. Those on
the outer sides are for vehicles, and are 19 feet wide; the centre is
for foot passengers, and is 15½ feet in width; while the two others are
for tramway traffic. The bridge was opened in 1883, and affords a great
triumph of engineering skill.

Much smaller, but none the less interesting, is the Suspension Bridge
at Clifton. As far back as 1753, Alderman William Vick, of Bristol,
left a sum of £1000 to build a bridge at Clifton. The sum was to lie
at compound interest until £10,000 was reached. However, the money
was increased by subscriptions, and in 1830 an Act of Parliament was
obtained for its construction.

The work coming into the hands of Mr. I. K. Brunel, he designed a
bridge of 702 feet span, and 250 feet above high-water. The piers and
abutments were built, but lack of cash, which forms an obstacle to so
many brilliant enterprises, stopped the progress of the bridge for
nearly fourteen years.

Then it occurred that the Hungerford Suspension Bridge was to be
removed to make way for the Charing Cross Railway Bridge, so the chains
were purchased at a comparatively small cost, and the work at Clifton
proceeded, and was finally completed.

Three chains on either side suspend long wrought-iron girders, which
help to stiffen the platform; and cross girders between support the
floor. The chains pass over rollers on the piers, and are ultimately
anchored to plates bedded in brickwork abutting on rock. The platform
is hung by upright rods from the chains, and hand-railing is used with
lattice-work, to assist in rendering it rigid. The roadway, twenty
feet wide, is made of creosoted wood, five inches thick, while the
pathways on either side are made with wood half as thick. Between the
piers the weight of the structure, including the chains, amounts to
nearly a thousand tons.

In all these suspension bridges, however large, the principles are much
the same. The platform, or roadway, is hung from chains or cables,
which pass over piers and are anchored fast at the ends. Some are
stiffened with girders and bracing to prevent undue undulation. The
chains take a graceful and definite curve, that of the Menai Bridge
dipping fifty-seven feet. The strain is the greatest at the lower part,
and is increased, should the chain be drawn flatter over the same
space. These bridges became widely adopted.

But there came a time when none of the bridges in vogue seemed to give
what was required. A new principle was wanted. Where was it to be found?




CHAPTER IV.

THE GREATEST BRIDGE IN THE WORLD.


“Have you heard the news? The Tay Bridge is blown down!”

“Yes. A terrible disaster. I should think they would give up their
scheme of bridging the Firth of Forth after that.”

“Not they! The scheme may be altered, but bridge it they will.
Engineers never give in.”

The comments of these newspaper readers were right. The Tay Bridge,
the longest in the world, had been blown down one wild December night
in 1879, and girders, towers, and the train which was rushing over it,
were suddenly hurled into the surging flood.

At that time a scheme was in hand to bridge the Forth for the North
British Railway system, and Sir Thomas Bouch had proposed two
suspension bridges hung by steel chains. But ultimately a new design
altogether was adopted, the plan being by Sir Benjamin Baker and Sir
John Fowler.

It was the new principle—or, rather, a remarkable development of an old
principle—for which the bridge-making world was waiting: the principle,
namely, of the cantilever.

A cantilever is, in fact, a bracket; and Sir Benjamin Baker has
described it as such. It is a strong support, built out from a firm
base, and is like a powerful and magnified bracket upholding a shelf.

In the Forth Bridge there are two huge spans, 1700 feet wide, crossed
by these cantilevers; bridging channels of some 200 feet deep.

The longest spans on the Tay Bridge were 245 feet; it was over two
miles long, and had ninety spans. It was an iron girder bridge, and was
opened on the 31st of May, 1878. Not to be beaten, however, after the
panic had subsided, another and more stable bridge was constructed,
also a girder, but not so high in elevation, and sixty feet further
up the river. It was opened in 1887, and is 10,779 feet long, with 85
piers, the navigable channel being under four of the spans, the centre
spans being 245 feet wide.

It will be seen at once that the cantilevers at the Forth Bridge cover
very much wider spans; and the channel being so deep, the impossibility
of building piers will also be obvious. The best place for the bridge
was marked by the projection of the Inverkeithing peninsula on the
north shore, and also the Inchgarvie rock in the channel itself. The
peninsula brought the two shores together, reducing the space to be
bridged, and the rock gave firm support for a pier. Still there were
the two immense spans of 1700 feet to be crossed, and the engineers
decided on the cantilever principle. Thus, though the Tay Bridge was
the longest in the world, the Forth presented by far the greatest
spans—viz., the two main spans of 1700 feet each, in addition to which
there are two of 675 feet each, and fifteen of 168 feet each.

The total length of this magnificent bridge, which Sir Benjamin Baker
rightly claimed was the most wonderful in the world, is somewhat over
1½ miles in length, or 8296 feet, including the piers, while almost a
mile is bridged by the huge and superb cantilevers. This is, perhaps,
the great marvel. The clear space under the centre is no less than 152
feet at high-water, while the highest portion is 361 feet above the
same mark.

And now, how was this great bridge constructed? Workshops were erected
at South Queensferry, and the mammoth cantilevers were put up there
piece by piece. They were fitted together and then taken plate by plate
to the bridge itself. The shops were lit by electricity, and furnished
with appliances for bending, cutting, moulding, holing, and planing
plates. The workshops were surrounded by quite a maze of railways.

But what of the piers, without which all these preparations would be
unavailing? Now the foundations of piers are usually laid by means of
cofferdams; that is, piles of timber are driven down through the water
into the bed of the river close together, and the interstices filled
with clay; or a casing of iron may be used instead. The water in the
enclosure thus formed can be pumped out and excavation proceeded with,
and the foundations laid. Cofferdams are sometimes made of iron boxes
or caissons with interstices fitted with felt, and caissons of this
kind about 12½ feet long and 7 feet wide were used in constructing the
Victoria Embankment on the Thames.

But with certain of the piers for the Forth Bridge the water was
too deep for timber cofferdams, and the usual diving-bell was not
sufficiently large. The piers were to be of immense size, no less than
55 feet in diameter, and the diving-bell of ordinary size would not
cover that great width.

Huge caissons were therefore made, 70 feet wide, constructed of iron
plates and rising in height, according to the depth of water, up to 150
feet. The lower part of the immense caisson or tank was fitted as a
water-tight division and filled with compressed air, the object being
to resist the pressure of the water. Two shafts communicated with this
air-tight division or mining chamber, one for the removal of the earth
excavated, and the other for the men to pass up and down. The escape
of the air through the shafts was prevented by the use of an air-lock,
working on the same principle as a water-lock on rivers or canals.
There were two doors in the lock, one communicating with the shaft and
the other with the outside air. When the latter was closed and the lock
filled with compressed air by opening a valve or tap, the door of the
shaft could be opened and the man could descend to his work below.

That work consisted chiefly of excavation in the bed of the river.
Drills, hydraulic cutters, and dynamite blasting were all utilised
until huge holes, many feet below the river bed, were hollowed out. As
the caisson was filled with concrete above the air-tight chamber where
the men worked it was exceedingly heavy, and sank by its own weight
into the space prepared.

The mining chamber was lit by electricity, and was about seven feet
high. The mud of the river bed was mixed with water and blown away by
the compressed air which seems to have been about 33 lbs. to the square
inch. The caissons were sunk down to rock or boulder clay, and when
they had reached the required distance the mining chamber was filled
with concrete, and the same material used to the level of the water;
the piers were then built up with huge stones placed in cement, the
whole forming a magnificent mass of concrete and masonry, carried down
in some cases to about 40 feet below the bed of the river.

[Illustration: THE FORTH BRIDGE.]

The three chief piers consist of groups of four columns of masonry,
each gradually tapering from 55 feet in diameter to 49 feet at the top,
and about 36 feet high. From these rise the huge cantilevers connected
together by girders 350 feet in length.

The centre of these three main piers rests on the island of Inchgarvie;
the two others are known as the Fife and the Queensferry piers
respectively, and are placed on the side of the deep water channels. In
addition to these three main piers are several others, some in shallow
water and some on land. The part of the bridge which they carry is
an ordinary girder of steel leading to the immense cantilevers. For
founding the shallow water piers, cofferdams were used; the caissons
with compressed air chambers being for the deep water structures.

They were put together on shore, launched, floated, steered to the
desired position, and sunk. One proved cranky and turned over, and was
only brought right after much expense and difficulty.

The cantilevers are bolted down to each pier by numbers of huge steel
ties, 24 feet in length and 2½ inches in diameter, embedded in the
masonry, there being 48 of these bolts or ties to each column. And now
as to these cantilevers.

Four huge tubular shafts, two on each side, rise from the group of
columns forming each pier, to the height of 350 feet. From these
shafts, which slope slightly inward, project the cantilevers, the upper
and lower parts being strongly braced together by diagonal ties. In
shape the gigantic brackets taper towards a point, the width decreasing
as much as from 120 feet at the commencement of the piers to 32 feet at
the ends. The wind, it is believed, will be more effectually resisted
by this means.

The cantilevers are hung back to back, one to some extent
counter-weighing the other. The component parts consist of cylinders
of steel or struts for resisting compression—these are the lower
parts; and ties of lattice-work made of steel plates for resisting
tension,—placed above.

Thus, then, from each of the three chief piers two pairs of gigantic
brackets project, each pair placed side by side and braced together,
and forming one composite cantilever jutting to the north and one to
the south. The rails run on sleepers placed lengthwise and fixed in
troughs of steel, so that should a train run off the line the wheels
will be caught by these supports.

It is calculated that there are about 45,000 tons of steel in the
bridge, and 120,000 cubic yards of masonry in the piers. The contract
price was £1,600,000, which works out at about £215 per foot; and the
contractors, who were able to obtain an admirable organisation of some
2000 men to carry out the magnificent design, were Messrs. Tancred,
Arrol, & Co. Some special tools for use in the work were planned by Sir
William Arrol. The bridge was opened by the Prince of Wales on the 4th
of March, 1890.

The success of this magnificent structure has assured the wider
adoption of the cantilever principle. Long-span bridges, in several
cases, have since been built on this design. Its engineers may claim
indeed to have widened the scope and possibilities of bridge-building.

Still, when another bridge was wanted over the Thames, at a busy spot,
crowded with shipping and near the historic Tower of London, another
kind of structure was adopted. What was it?




CHAPTER V.

THE TOWER BRIDGE.


“Why should they not have a drawbridge?”

“What! To draw up from each bank of the river?”

“No, I did not mean that exactly. Could they not get piers farther in
towards the centre of the stream, and let the drawbridge rise and fall
from them?”

“The river is too crowded for many piers.”

“It is. But I cannot help thinking a drawbridge—a bascule bridge as the
engineers call it—is the best solution of the difficulty.”

“Well, a bridge is wanted sufficiently low to spring from the flat
banks of the Thames for foot passengers and carriage traffic, and yet
sufficiently high to permit tall ships to pass underneath.”

“And apparently these two requirements are incompatible.”

“Not altogether,” remarks a third speaker.

“You are partly right in your idea of a drawbridge. That is Sir Horace
Jones’s idea. And, further, there is literally to be a high and also
a low-level bridge; for there are to be two levels—that is, two
roadways—one at a high, and one at a low, level across the middle span.”

“And is the low level to be a drawbridge—a roadway that can be drawn up
to permit vessels to pass? Is that so?”

“Exactly. And this drawbridge will be in two parts, one on either side;
they will be worked from two massive piers giving a clear span of 200
feet in the middle of the stream, through which span big vessels can
pass. The usual traffic of the river will be able to pass even when the
drawbridges are down.”

“And above the bascules or drawbridges will run the high-level bridge?”

“Yes, a girder bridge for footpaths, and people will reach it by lifts
and staircases in the piers—which, by-the-by, will be more like huge
towers. These towers will also contain the machinery for raising and
lowering the drawbridges.”

“And what sort of bridge will be used for the other spans—that is, to
cross the river between the piers and the shore?”

“Suspension bridges; so that the Tower Bridge as it will be called,
for it will cross the Thames by the Tower of London, will embody
the suspension, the bascule (or drawbridge), and the girder bridge
principles, while in the centre will be two levels.”

“It promises to be a splendid piece of work.”

“It does. And it is very much needed, for the congestion of traffic on
London Bridge is terrible.”

“And people have often to come round a long way to reach it.”

The promise of the Tower Bridge, as set forth by these speakers, has
been amply fulfilled. It is indeed a fine piece of work; and although
it does not embody any new idea, yet in its combination and development
of old principles and in its size it is very remarkable. It was opened
in June, 1894, and is, or was at the time of building, the biggest
bascule bridge in the world.

Within its handsome Gothic towers are steel columns of immense
strength, constituting the chief supports of the suspension bridges
and of the high-level footways. The architect was the late Sir Horace
Jones, and the engineer Mr. J. Wolfe Barry, while the cost was,
including land, about £1,170,000.

The problem was to combine a low-level bridge providing for ordinary
town traffic with a high level, under which ships could pass, and it
was accomplished by a union of principles. In its oldest shape the
drawbridge was probably a huge piece of timber, which was hauled up
and let down by chains over the moats of castles. In the Tower Bridge
there are two of such huge “flaps” or leaves, each about 100 feet long,
one rising and falling from each pier and meeting in the centre. Large
bascule bridges are usually constructed in this manner, and there is an
excellent specimen over the Ouse, for the passage of the North-Eastern
railway; one man at each half of the bridge can raise it in less than
two minutes. Another fine bascule may be seen at Copenhagen.

The bascules are raised and lowered by chains, which, in the case of
the Tower Bridge, are worked by superb hydraulic power from the massive
pier towers. When drawn up, which is done in less than five minutes,
the bascules are even with the sides of the towers, and full space is
given for the vessels to pass.

The two side spans of the bridge, crossed by the suspension bridges,
are wider than the centre, being 270 feet each, and the total length
of the whole bridge is 800 feet between the abutments. There are also
piers on the shoreward side for carrying the chains of the suspension
bridges at each extremity.

The massive tower piers, sunk 27 feet below the river bed, are built of
gray granite, and are also fitted with strong break-waters to resist
the action of the tide. The high-level bridges across the central
span are for foot passengers, and are 135 feet over high-water mark.
The bascule bridges, when closed for vehicular traffic, are 29½ feet
above high water, while the side suspension spans are 27 feet. The
roadway is 50 feet wide, which is also the width of the approaches. The
foot passenger traffic is never stopped, as persons can pass by the
hydraulic lifts or the stairways in the tower piers to the high-level
bridges above.

Sir Horace Jones died before the great work was completed, and was
succeeded by Mr. G. D. Stevenson, who had been his assistant. Sir
William Arrol & Co. supplied the iron and steel, and Sir William
Armstrong the hydraulic machinery. Various contractors carried out
different portions of the mighty work, which occupied about eight
years in building. Near by stands the ancient Tower of London, looking
not unkindly on the great constructive effort to which it has given its
name.

Sometimes a bridge is made movable by swinging it round on a pivot
instead of drawing it up on a hinge or axis; and sometimes, as in
the case of a bridge over the Arun for the Brighton and South Coast
Railway, it is made to slide on wheels backwards and forwards from
the abutment. Floating or pontoon bridges are made by placing planks
on pontoons, or boats anchored by cables. The longest in the world is
probably at Calcutta, across the Hooghly. It is 1530 feet in length,
there being twenty-eight pontoons in pairs. These are of iron, 160 feet
long, and with ends shaped like wedges; they support a road-way of
3-inch timbers, forty-eight feet wide, and raised on tressel work. An
opening can be made for ships by removing four pontoons and floating
them clear of the passage way.

Great bridges present some of the most remarkable triumphs of the
engineer. They rank beside the express locomotive and the ocean liner
as among the great constructive achievements of mankind. Daring in
design, and bold in execution and in sweep of span, they have been
developed along several principles; and so solidly have they been
built, so sound are the laws of their being, that it seems as though
they will live as long as the everlasting hills.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]


REMARKABLE TUNNELS AND THEIR CONSTRUCTION.




CHAPTER I.

HOW BRUNEL MADE A BORING-SHIELD.


“I watched the worm at work and took my idea from that tiny creature!”

“A worm! Was it an ordinary worm?”

“Oh no, it was the naval wood-worm—_Teredo Navalis_; it can bore its
way through the hardest timber. I was in a dockyard and I saw the
movements of this animal as it cut its way through the wood, and the
idea struck me that I could produce some machine of the kind for
successful tunnelling.”

“Well, it has been brilliantly successful.”

“I looked at the animal closely, and found that it was covered with
a couple of valvular shells in front; these shells seem to act as a
shield, and after many attempts I elaborated the boring-shield which
was used in hollowing out the Thames Tunnel.”

This statement, which we can imagine to have been made by Sir Marc
Isambard Brunel to a friend, is no doubt in substance quite true. A
writer in the “Edinburgh Encyclopædia” says, that Sir M. I. Brunel
informed him, “that the idea upon which his new plan of tunnelling is
founded, was suggested to him by the operations of the _Teredo_, a
testaceous worm, covered with a cylindrical shell, which eats its way
through the hardest wood.”

Two or three attempts had already been made to drive a tunnel under the
Thames, but they had ended in failure. In 1823, Brunel came forward
with another proposal, and he ultimately succeeded.

This illustrious engineer must not be confounded with his son—who was
also a celebrated engineer—Isambard Kingdom Brunel. There were two
Brunels, father and son, even as there were two Stephensons, George and
Robert.

Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, the father, whose most notable enterprise
was the Thames Tunnel, was a French farmer’s son, and after various
experiences in France and America settled in England in 1799, and
married the daughter of William Kingdom of Plymouth. He had already
succeeded as an engineer so well as to be appointed chief engineer of
New York, and a scheme for manufacturing block-pulleys by machinery for
vessels was accepted by the British Government, who paid him £17,000
for the invention. He was also engaged in the construction of Woolwich
Arsenal and Chatham Dockyard, etc., and in 1823 he came forward with
another proposal for the Thames Tunnel.

In that same year, his son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, entered his
father’s office, and assisted in the construction of the tunnel. The
son subsequently became engineer to the Great Western Railway, and
designed the _Great Western_ steamship.

But though Brunel’s proposal for the tunnel was made public in 1823,
the work was not actually commenced until March, 1825. It was to cross
under the river from Wapping to Rotherhithe, and present two archways.
And if you had been down by the Rotherhithe bank of the Thames about
the latter date, you would have been surprised to see that instead of
hollowing out a shaft, proceedings began by raising a round tower.

A space was traced out, some 50 feet across, and bricklayers began to
build a circular hollow tower about 3 feet thick and 42 feet high.

This tower was strengthened by iron bars, etc., and then the excavation
commenced within. The soil was dug out and raised by an engine at the
top, which also pumped out water. And as the hollow proceeded, the
great shaft or tube of masonry sank gradually into it. Bricklayers
added to its summit until it reached a total height of 65 feet, which
in due course was sunk into the ground.

Thus, then, the engineer had, to commence with, a strong and reliable
brickwork shaft, 3 feet thick, by which men and materials could ascend
and descend in safety. A smaller shaft was also sunk deeper for
drainage.

And now the actual boring of the tunnel commenced. It was to be 38 feet
wide and 22½ feet in height. On New Year’s Day, 1826, the boring-shield
was placed below in the shaft. The shield was composed of 36 cells, 3
cells in height and 12 in breadth, with a workman to each.

The huge “shield” was placed before the earth to be excavated, and
a front board being removed, the soil behind it was dug out to a
specified extent, and the board was propped against the fresh surface
thus made. When the boards had all been placed thus, the cells were
pushed forward into the hollow then made. This was accomplished by
means of screws at the top and bottom of the shield, and which were set
against the completed brickwork behind.

For, while the labourers were working in front, the bricklayers behind
built up the sides and roof, and formed the floor of the tunnel, the
soil at the roof being supported by the shield until the masons had
completed their task.

For nine feet, the tunnel proceeded through clay, but then came an
unwelcome change. Wet, loose sand prevailed, and the work progressed
with peril for thirty-two days, when firmer ground was reached. Six
months passed and substantial headway was made, the tunnel being
completed to the extent of 260 feet.

Then, on the 14th of September, the startling intelligence came that
the engineer feared the river would burst in at the next tide. He had
found a cavity over the shield. Sure enough, at high tide, when the
river was brimming full, the workmen heard the ominous rattle of earth
falling on their shield, while gushes of water followed.

So excellent were the precautions, however, that no disastrous effects
followed, and Father Thames himself rolled earth or clay into the hole
and stopped it up. It was a warning, and emphasised the fear that
haunted the men’s minds all through the hazardous undertaking—the fear
that the river would break through and drown the tunnel.

In October, another small irruption took place, and was successfully
combated. Then, in the following January (1827), some clay fell, but
still no overwhelming catastrophe occurred. The ground grew so moist,
however, that it was examined on the other side. That is, the river
bed was inspected by the agency of a diving-bell, and some ominous
depressions were found. These were promptly filled by bags of clay.

It may be asked, Why had Brunel not gone deeper? Why had he not placed
a greater thickness of earth or clay between his work and the waters of
the Thames?

The answer is this—He had been informed by geologists that quicksand
prevailed lower down, and the shaft that he sank for drainage below
the level of the proposed tunnel, indicated that this view might be
correct. In fact, when he got down 80 feet, the soil gave way, and
water and sand rushed upwards. He was therefore apparently between the
Thames and the quicksand. The Tower Subway, constructed in 1869, and
driven through the solid London clay, is, however, 60 feet deep where
it commences at Tower Hill.

Work went steadily forward at Brunel’s tunnel until the 18th of May.
Mr. Beamish, the assistant engineer, was in the cutting on that day,
and as the tide rose he observed the water increase about the shield;
clay showed itself and gravel appeared. He had the clay closed up, and
went to encourage the pumpers. Suddenly, before he could get into the
cells, a great rush of sludge and water drove the men out of the cells,
extinguished the lights, floated the cement casks and boxes, and poured
forward and ever forward, filling the tunnel with the roaring of the
flood.

The Thames had broken in with a vengeance this time, and drowned the
tunnel.




CHAPTER II.

UNDER THE RIVER.


Happily no one lost his life.

The men retreated before the advancing wave, and as they went they met
Brunel. But the great engineer could do nothing just then, except,
like them, to retreat. The lights yet remaining flashed on the roaring
water, and then suddenly went out in darkness.

The foot of the staircase was reached, and it was found thronged with
the retreating workers. Higher and higher grew the surging flood;
Brunel ordered great speed; and scarcely were the men’s feet off the
lower stair when it was torn away.

On gaining the top, cries were heard; some calling for a rope, others
for a boat. Some one was below in the water! Brunel himself slipped
down an iron rod, another followed, and each fastening a rope to the
body of a man they found in the flood, he was soon drawn out of
danger. On calling the roll, every worker answered to his name. No life
was lost.

So far, good; but what was to be done now? The tunnel was full of
water. To pump it dry was impossible, for the tide poured in from the
Thames.

Again the diving-bell was used, and the hole was found in the bed of
the river. To stop it bags of clay, with hazel sticks, were employed;
and so difficult was the task that three thousand bags were utilised
in the process, and more than a month elapsed before the water was
subdued. Two months more passed before the earth washed in was removed,
and Brunel could examine the work.

He found it for the most part quite sound, though near the shield it
had been shorn of half its thickness of bricks. The chain of the shield
was snapped in twain, and irons belonging to the same apparatus had
been forced into the earth.

The men now proceeded with their task, and exhibited a cool courage
deserving of all praise. Earth and water frequently fell; foul gases
pervaded the stifling air, and sometimes exploded, or catching
fire, they would now and again dance over the water; and again and
again labourers would be carried away insensible from the poisonous
atmosphere. Complaints, such as skin eruptions, sickness, and
headaches, were common. Yet, in spite of every difficulty, the men
worked on in that damp and dripping and fœtid mine, haunted ever with
the dread of another flood.

And it came. On the 12th of August, 1828, some fifteen months after the
previous disaster, the ground bulged out, a large quantity fell, and a
violent rush of water followed; one man being washed out of his cell to
the wooden staging behind.

[Illustration: THE THAMES TUNNEL.]

The flow was so great that Brunel ordered all to retire. The water rose
so fast that when they had retreated a few feet it was up to their
waists, and finally Brunel had to swim to the stairs, and the rush of
water carried him up the shaft. Unhappily, about half-a-dozen lives
were lost at this catastrophe, and those who were rescued—about a dozen
in number—were extricated in an exhausted or fainting state. The roar
of the water in the shaft made a deafening noise; the news soon spread,
and the scene became very distressing as the relatives of the men
arrived.

Once more the hole in the bed of the Thames had to be stopped. Down
went the diving-bell, but it had to descend twice before the gap was
discovered. It was a hole some seven feet long, and four thousand tons
of earth, chiefly bags of clay, were used in filling it. Again the
tunnel was entered, and again the intrepid engineer found the work
sound.

But, alas, another difficulty had presented itself—one more difficult
to conquer even than stopping up huge holes in the bed of the Thames.
The tunnel was being cut by a Company, and its money had gone; nay,
more, its confidence had well nigh gone also. Work could not proceed
without money, and for seven years silence and desolation reigned in
those unfinished halls beneath the river.

Then the Government agreed to advance money, and work was again
commenced. But it proceeded very slowly, some weeks less than a foot
being cut, during others again three feet nine inches. The ground was
in fact a fluid mud, and the bed of the river had to be artificially
formed before the excavation could proceed in comparative safety.
Further, the tunnel was far deeper than any other work in the
neighbourhood, and all the water drained there—a difficulty which was
obviated by the construction of a shaft on the other side of the river.

The shield had also to be replaced. It had been so battered about by
the flood that another was necessary. As it kept up the earth above,
and also in front, the change was both arduous and perilous. But it was
accomplished without loss of life.

Three more irruptions of water occurred: the third in August, 1837,
the fourth in November, 1837, and the fifth in March, 1838. But the
engineer was more prepared for Father Thames’ unpleasant visits, and a
platform had been constructed by which the men could escape. Unhappily,
one life was lost, however, on the fourth occasion. A great rush of
soil also occurred in April, 1840, accompanied by a sinking of the
shore at Wapping over some seven hundred feet of surface. Happily this
occurred at low tide, and the chasm was filled with gravel and bags of
clay before the river rose high.

At length, on the 13th of August, 1841, Brunel descended the shaft at
Wapping, and entering a small cutting, passed through the shield in
the tunnel, amidst the cheers of the workmen. After all these years
of arduous toil, of anxious solicitude, and of hair-breadth escapes,
the end was near, and a passage under the Thames was cut. It was not
completed and open to the public, however, until the 25th of March,
1843, and then for foot passengers only.

The approaches for carriages remained to be constructed, and would have
been expensive works. They were to be immense circular roads, but they
were never made. Perhaps that deficiency contributed to the commercial
failure of the great engineering enterprise. In any case, the tunnel
never paid; the Company dissolved; and the tunnel passed over to the
East London Railway, who run trains through it. Its length is 1300
feet, while between it and the river there is a thickness of soil of
some fifteen feet.

Though a failure as a business, yet the tunnel was a great engineering
triumph. It was a marvel of perseverance, and of determined, arduous,
skilful toil against overwhelming difficulties. Eighteen years
passed before it was completed; and if the seven be deducted during
which the work was stopped, still eleven remain as the period of its
construction. Work occupying such a length of time must be costly.
Could it be shortened? Would tunnel-making machinery be developed and
improved so as to expedite the labour of years?




CHAPTER III.

THROUGH THE ALPS.


“Cut through the Alps? It is an impossibility; and it would never pay!”

“Yet they are about to do it. Sommeiller, an engineer, has invented, or
obtained, a rock-boring machine which promises to lighten the labour
considerably; and then, of course, they will shatter great quantities
of earth by explosives.”

“And what part of the Alps?”

“Through Mont Cenis. The tunnel will be about 7½ miles long, and the
mountain over it will rise 5400 feet at one point.”

“And when do they expect to finish it?”

“I cannot say. They will begin on the southern—that is, the
Italian—side first, and later on the French side. Through the tunnel
will pass one of the principal routes from the West to the East.”

This conversation, we may suppose, took place in 1857, the year when
the tunnel was commenced. For four years hand work was used, though
blasting was in operation from the first; but in 1861 drilling by
machinery was brought into play, and the rate of progress became much
greater.

The machine was the first practical boring apparatus for rock, and
was used first in making the Mont Cenis Tunnel. With explosives, as
gun-cotton, dynamite, etc., the time occupied in cutting tunnels has
been much reduced. Thus the Mont Cenis Tunnel occupied about thirteen
years, and cost three millions of pounds. The St. Gotthard—another
Alpine subway—occupied eight years, though it is 9¼ miles in length;
and the Arlberg—yet another Alpine tunnel—a little over 6 miles long,
occupied something more than three years.

Further, the railway of which the St. Gotthard Tunnel forms part, has
been commercially very successful. This tunnel was commenced in 1872
and completed in 1880, the same year that saw the beginning of the
Arlberg.

Tunnels through hard rock do not always need a lining of brickwork; but
if the soil be clay, or loose earth of any kind, the lining of brick
or stone must be brought up close to the scene of actual excavation.
The Mont Cenis is lined with stone or brick almost entirely, about 900
feet, however, being without such lining.

And now, how was the actual work of tunnelling carried on? It will be
seen at once that the problem was quite different from that of boring
fifteen feet under the Thames, and sometimes through watery mud. In
boring through mountains the quickest way of cutting and carting away
rock is one of the chief points to be considered. At the Mont Cenis
Tunnel the blasting took place by driving a series of shot holes into
the soil, all over the surface to be cut, filling them with explosives,
and firing them simultaneously in rings. Such explosives may be fired
by a time-fuse or by electricity, giving the workmen ample time to
escape out of reach. The shaken and shattered soil can then be cleared
away.

The blast holes in this small-shot system are about 1 to 1½ inch in
diameter, and from 1½ to 7 or 9 feet in the rock. The explosive is
forced to the end of each, and the hole is then tamped—that is, closed
with clay or sand—and fired in due time.

[Illustration: BORING MACHINE USED FOR THE MONT CENIS TUNNEL.]

The cutters for boring in rock are often diamond drills, the cutting
edges being furnished with a kind of diamond found in Brazil, of a
black colour and of great hardness. These are placed round the edge
of a cylinder of steel, to which iron pipes can be screwed as the
edge cuts its way deeper in the rock. The stuff cut out as the drill
revolves finds its way through the cylinder and the piping. There are,
however, a great number of boring machines of different kinds, hard
steel sometimes taking the place of the opaque diamonds for cutting
purposes. The compressed air with which many of the machines are
worked assisted in the St. Gotthard in the ventilation of the tunnel,
frequently a great consideration, as the space is so small and the gas
from explosions often so great.

The Mont Cenis Tunnel marks a transition period in tunnelling. During
the four years that hand labour was used, the average rate of progress
was but nine inches a-day on either side; but when the rock-drills
worked by compressed air were introduced, the speed was five times as
great. Still further, at the Arlberg Tunnel through the Tyrolese Alps
the average rate of progress was 9·07 yards per day, and the cost £108
per lineal yard; while the cost of the Mont Cenis was £226 per lineal
yard. These figures show immense progress in economy and in speed.

The St. Gotthard Tunnel was begun in 1872, and the machine drills were
used throughout. A heading was first cut about eight feet square, and
the hollow thus gained was afterwards enlarged and finally sunk to the
desired level. Several Ferroux drills were used, placed on a carriage,
and an average charge of 1¾ lbs. of dynamite placed in the holes made.
After firing, the compressed air was discharged and the shattered soil
was cleared away.

In the Arlberg Tunnel a chief heading was driven, and then shafts
opened up enabling smaller headings to be driven on both hands. Drills
worked by hydraulic power were used, as well as drills worked by air,
and, after the explosions, water spray was thrown out to assist in
clearing and purifying the air. Ventilators also were used, which
injected air at the rate of more than 8000 cubic feet per minute.
Speedy transit of the earth excavated and the materials for masonry
were also effected, it being estimated that some 900 tons of earth had
to be taken out of each end, and about 350 tons of masonry had to be
brought in, every day.

Tunnels through huge thicknesses of rock or under rivers can only
be cut from the two opposite ends. Where possible, however, other
shafts have been sunk along the line the subway was to take, and thus
excavation might continue at several places along the line of route,
the shafts being used for ventilation and for the conveyance of the
excavated soil.

But the use of machine drills and of blasting explosives, with improved
appliances for ventilation, have, with possibly some rare exceptions,
rendered these methods obsolete. According to Pliny the tunnel for
draining Lake Fucino was the greatest work of his day. It was over
3½ miles long, and cut under Monte Salviano. Forty shafts were sunk
in cutting it, also sloping galleries, and huge copper buckets were
used to carry away the earth. It is stated that this tunnel—some ten
feet high, by six wide—occupied 30,000 men eleven years. Compare this
with the Arlberg, or even the Gotthard, double and treble the length,
occupying much less time. Sir Benjamin Baker has calculated that the
Fucino tunnel could now be cut in eleven months.

Gunpowder gave some advance on old Roman methods of tunnelling. The
improved explosives and rock-drills have gone further.

Even as the Mont Cenis shows a transition period, so the Arlberg may
be said to emphasise a triumph of the methods then indicated. So great
have been the improvements of the rock-boring machinery, of the power
of the blasts, and the speedy ventilation following the explosions, and
of the quick transit of materials, that we shall most likely hear no
more of sinking numerous shafts along the route.

But what of subaqueous tunnels? Violent explosives are hardly suitable
for excavation a few feet under a turbid river. What is to be done,
when cutting under a full and treacherous stream?




CHAPTER IV.

UNDER WATER AGAIN.


“How to cross the Thames at Blackwall, far east of the Tower Bridge?”
That was a problem which the citizens of London had to face in the
latter part of the nineteenth century.

An immense population dwelt on either side, and some means of easy
communication became a pressing necessity. Should it be effected by
means of a bridge, fixed or floating, or by means of a tunnel?

Finally a tunnel was decided upon, with sloping approaches on either
side. Its entire length was to be 6200 feet including the approaches;
but herein lay the danger and the difficulty—it was to be driven only
seven feet below the bed of the river, and through loose soil and
gravel.

How then was this perilous task to be accomplished? If the great river
burst through Brunel’s fifteen feet, would it not be much more likely
to rush through this seven feet of loose soil?

But the engineers in charge had an appliance in hand, which was unknown
to Brunel—viz., a compressed air chamber, a piece of apparatus which
has facilitated several great engineering achievements, besides the
Blackwall Tunnel.

When the excavation of the tunnel was commenced, a stout apartment
was formed at the end of the cutting, into which air was pumped until
it exerted a pressure of some thirty-five pounds to a square inch, in
addition to its usual weight.

This is generally reckoned at an average of 14·7 pounds to a square
inch. We are so used to this pressure that we do not feel it; but let
us enter a room where the air has been much more compressed, as in
this air-chamber, and serious consequences would be likely to ensue,
especially at first.

The human body, however, has a wonderful power of adaptability, and
after a time some men get used to the change and can work in the
compressed air without injury. But at first it may cause bleeding from
the nose and ears, sometimes indeed affecting the hearing more or less
seriously, and also causing great pain.

The reason for using this compressed air chamber was to keep out Father
Thames. The great pressure of the air resisted the great pressure of
the water, and held up the seven feet of soil between.

Powerful engines were maintained at work to provide for the pressure
of the air, and the chamber in which the compressed air was kept was
entered and left by the workmen through an “air-lock”—that is, a small
ante-chamber having two doors, one leading to the compressed air and
the other to the ordinary atmosphere, and neither being opened at the
same time.

The men, then, worked in this compressed air chamber, which prevented
irruptions of the river. But the method of excavation was also another
safeguard, both against irruptions of water and of earth.

In essence, it was much the same as that pursued in boring the tunnel
for the South London Electric Railway; that, however, was through thick
clay and about 10½ feet in diameter, and this was 27 feet across, and
through loose and stony stuff. The shield, instead of containing as in
Brunel’s time a number of cells, consisted of an immense iron cylinder,
weighing some 250 tons; closed in front, but having a door in the
closed part; the rim of the cylinder round this part having a sharp
edge for cutting into the soil.

[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE TO THE AIR-LOCK.

(_Men waiting to enter the Compressed Air-Chamber through the Door._)]

The door being opened, the men found themselves face to face with the
earth to be excavated. They cut away as well as they could, perhaps
about 2½ feet deep, throwing the earth into trucks in the compressed
air chamber; these trucks would be afterwards hauled away through the
air-lock by electricity, and the huge iron cylinder would be pushed
forward by means of hydraulic power. Twenty-eight hydraulic “jacks”
were employed, and they forced forward the 250 ton cylinder with its
cutting edge, when the men would resume working through the door as
before.

Behind them, the hole of the tunnel thus cut out was being lined.
First, it was built round with iron plates a couple of inches thick.
This plating was fixed in segments, and formed a huge pipe a little
smaller than the actual hollow in the earth. Through holes in the
immense piping, liquid cement was forced, thus plugging up the space
entirely between the earth and the iron, and forming an outer ring of
cement.

Within, the tunnel was completed by a facing of glazed tiles, placed on
a thickness of 14 inches of concrete. A road-way was laid 16 feet wide,
flanked by footpaths of 3 feet, 2 inches, on either side. The subway is
lighted by electricity, and staircases on the banks lead down to it for
foot passengers. The stairways give entrance to the tunnel not far from
the river, and much nearer than the commencement of the carriage-way
approaches.

At the northern side, the slope down commences near the East India
Dock entrance, and turns out of the East India Dock Road. The slope
is fairly gradual—about one in thirty-four—and it passes under the
Blackwall line of the Great Eastern Railway, and near to Poplar
Station. The part of the tunnel near to this point—that is the part
between the river and the open slope—was executed by what is called
“cut and cover” work—that is, a huge trench was dug, then arched in and
covered over.

“Cut and cover” work also took place on the south side; and there, at
the foot of an immense excavation ninety feet down, and with its sides
held up by huge timbers, might have been seen a river of water which
had drained in and was being pumped up quickly by powerful machinery.

Not far distant, the shaft was being sunk for the staircase. In
principle, the sinking of the shaft was conducted much as Brunel’s
shaft at the Thames Tunnel, only it was built up of iron instead of
brick. Imagine a big gasometer with a scaffold near the top, where men
are busy building the walls higher and higher by adding on plate after
plate of iron. On reaching the scaffold you find that there are two
great cylinders of iron, one standing inside the other, and concrete
is being filled in between them. Men also are down below digging out
the earth which is being swung up in iron buckets; and as the soil is
gradually removed, the immense double iron and concrete cylinder slowly
sinks by its own weight.

In this manner, the great shaft was sunk nearly ninety feet, and within
it the staircase has been built, giving entrance for foot passengers,
not far from the river. Thus, on either side are sloping entrances to
the tunnel, and also, nearer the water, stairways of descent down great
shafts.

Engineers have also found their way beneath other great English
rivers—the Severn and the Mersey. Much water had to be dealt with
in the cutting of the Severn Tunnel. This important work, four and
one-third miles long, was driven in some places forty-five feet under
sandstone, and at the Salmon Pool—a hollow in the river bed—the tunnel
was thirty feet under soil called trias marl. Much greater space,
therefore, exists here between the tunnel and river than at Blackwall.
But the river burst through. The work was begun in 1873, and completed
in 1886.

Six years after its commencement the tunnel was drowned, so to speak,
for a long time by a large spring of water which burst out from
limestone, and arrangements had to be made to provide for this flood.
It is now conducted by a subsidiary tunnel or channel to a huge shaft,
where it is raised by pumps of sufficient strength. Then there was the
perilous Salmon Pool to be dealt with. The river burst through here,
and the rent had to be stopped with clay. The tunnel is twenty-six
feet wide by twenty feet high, and is cut through Pennant stone,
shale, and marl. It is lined with Staffordshire vitrified bricks
throughout—seventy-five million bricks it is estimated being used. The
works are ventilated by a huge fan, and pumping continually proceeds,
something like twenty-six million gallons of water, it is said, being
raised in the twenty-four hours. The tunnel, of which the engineers
were Messrs. Hawkshaw, Son, Hayter & Richardson, and Mr. T. A. Walker,
Contractor, is for the use of the Great Western Railway, and saves
that Company’s Welsh and Irish trains to Milford a long way round by
Gloucester.

[Illustration: THE BORING MACHINE USED IN THE PRELIMINARY CONSTRUCTION
OF THE ENGLISH CHANNEL TUNNEL.]

In cutting the Mersey Tunnel, which was completed in 1886, machinery
was used for some of the work. The machine bored partly to a diameter
of seven feet four inches, but hand labour had to be largely depended
upon. The plan pursued was to sink a shaft on either side of the
river and drive a heading, sloping upward through the sandstone to
the centre; this heading acting as a drain for any water which might
appear. The thickness between the arch of the tunnel and the river bed
is thirty feet at its least, and the tunnel, which occupied about six
years in construction, and of which the engineers were Messrs. Brunlees
& Fox, is provided with pumps raising some thirteen million gallons
of water daily. As in the case of the Severn Tunnel, ventilation is
provided for by huge fans.

A boring machine was also used in the preliminary efforts for the
construction of a tunnel under the English Channel. Holes, seven
feet across and to the length of 2000 yards, have been bored by a
compressed air machine, working with two arms furnished with teeth of
steel. The construction of the tunnel is held to be quite feasible from
an engineering point of view, and it is believed that it would pass
through strata impervious to water, such as chalk marl and grey chalk.

Still, the huge tunnel at Blackwall, which was carried out by Mr.
Binnie, Chief Engineer of the London County Council, with Mr. Greathead
and Sir Benjamin Baker as Consulting Engineers, is probably one of the
most daring and stupendous enterprises of the kind ever undertaken. To
hollow out a subway hundreds of feet long under the Thames, only seven
feet from the bed of the great river, and through loose gravelly soil,
was a great triumph. It was achieved not by uncalculating bravery, but
by a wise combination of cool courage, superb skill, and admirable
foresight.

To design effectively, to provide for contingencies, to be daunted
by no difficulties—these qualities help to produce the Triumphs of
Engineers, as well as do great inventive skill, the power of adapting
principles to varying circumstances, and high-spirited enterprise in
planning and conducting noble and useful works. These works may well
rank among the great achievements of man’s effort and the wonders of
the world.


THE END.


LORIMER AND GILLIES, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

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