32 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



large enough, and it was impossible to make it strong enough by joining ; 

 but he believed Professor Fairbairn had discovered the means of joining 

 iron so as to make it equal in strength to solid metal. Having alluded to 

 the building of the Great Western, and subsequently of the Great Britain, 

 and the prophetic doubts expressed at first regarding the fate of each, the 

 speaker proceeded to describe the great vessel now being built by him upon 

 the Thames, for the Eastern Steam. Navigation Company, to trade with 

 India and Australia. He showed how the difficulty of carrying coals, and 

 having to stop for them and buy them at high rates at St. Vincent and the 

 Cape of Good Hope, and sometimes the Mauritius, created such an expense 

 that no freights could cover ; he showed how it became necessary to con- 

 struct a vessel large enough to carry her own coals all the way. When, 

 therefore, he told them that the vessel being constructed was expected to 

 make the voyage to Australia in 30 days, carrying a sufficient freight, 

 with 600 first-class and 1,000 second-class passengers, having three large 

 tiers of decks, eight feet each in height, that she was 675 feet long, 83 

 feet beam, 60 feet deep, when he told them that he had just measured 

 St. George's Hall, and found that it would not fairly represent this 

 ship, being only 169 feet instead of 675 feet long, that up to the top of 

 the hall it was only 82 feet high, and up to the spring of the arch about 

 the height of the ship, that the breadth of St. George's Hall was only 

 77 feet, being six feet narrower than the hold of the ship, it would give 

 them the nearest approximation he could convey to the size of the vessel. 

 Mr. Russell concluded by a prediction, in eloquent terms, of the glorious 

 effects to civilization which would ensue from the noble rivalry existing 

 at present among individuals and nations in the advancement of science. 

 In reply to a question afterwards put to him, he stated that the huge ves- 

 sel which he had described would draw twenty feet when light, and thirty 

 feet loaded. 



Mr. Fail bairn had no hesitation, judging from the drawings he had seen, 

 and from the principle of the vessel, in saying, that she would be perfectly 

 suitable, strong, and calculated to carry out the object for which she was 

 designed. When they were able to construct the Britannia Bridge, 460 

 feet long, without any support in the middle, and could run a train 

 through it, there could be no doubt that such a vessel as had been de- 

 scribed could carry the weight and resist the opposition necessary. 



FISHER'S VENETIAN SCREW-PROPELLER. 



The object of this propeller is to prevent the retardation which occurs in 

 an ordinary screw-propeller, by the tendency to produce a vacuum at the 

 back of the blades of the propeller. To effect this, Mr. Fisher makes slits 

 in the blades to allow the water to pass through, and thus to supply the 

 place of the fluid which is drawn backward as the screw turns round. 

 These slits give the propeller somewhat the appearance of a Venetian blind, 



