32 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DlsCOVFEY 



section, he was laying the grounds of meeting the British Association that 

 day twenty years, and finding that the mode of mechanical construction 

 which he proposed had been as universally adopted as the wave principle, 

 because of the publications of the British Association. Mr. Scott Russell 

 then proceeded to give an elaborate description of the old method of con- 

 structing an iron ship, contrasting it with the improved style which lie pur- 

 sued at present. Instead of the mass of wooden rubbish, which did not 

 strengthen the ship, and involved enormous expense, he placed inside the 

 iron shell as many complete bulkheads as the owner permitted him to do, 

 and then constructed in the intermediate spaces partial bulkheads, or bulk- 

 heads in the centime of which holes had been cut for the purposes of stowage. 

 The deck was strengthened by the introduction of pieces of angle-iron and 

 other contrivances, and, as an iron ship, when, weak, was not weak cross- 

 ways, but lengthways, he strengthened it in this direction by means of two 

 longitudinal bulkheads, and the result was a strength and solidity which 

 could not be obtained in any other way. The Great Eastern had all these 

 improvements, and, in addition, the cellular system, so successfully applied 

 in the Britannia Bridge, had been introduced all round the bottom and 

 under the deck of the ship, giving the greatest amount of strength to resist 

 crushing that could be procured. As he had already observed, there was 

 nothing new in the ship but her great size and cellular construction. It was 

 true she would be propelled both by a screw and paddles, but there was no 

 reason to doubt that they would work harmoniously. 



In connection with this paper of Mr. Russell, the following notice of this 

 gigantic steamer, copied from the Liverpool Albion, is worthy of record : 



Granting that the mammoth ship is merely an extended copy of all other 

 iron steamers built on the wave line principle, let us see what are the " one 

 or two exceptions," so modestly alluded to by Mr. Russell before the British 

 Association at Dublin. The most prominent, in reality, though a feature 

 which escapes unprofessional visitors, is the cellular construction of the 

 upper deck, and the lower part of the hull, up to the water line, or about 

 thirty feet from her bottom, which is as flat as the floor of a room. This 

 system, while it gives greater buoyancy to the hull, increases her strength 

 enormously, and thus enables her to resist almost any outward pressure. 

 Two walls of iron, about sixty feet high, divide her longitudinally into three 

 parts, the inner containing the boilers, the engine rooms, and the saloons, 

 rising one above the other, and the lateral divisions the coal bunkers, and, 

 above them, the side cabins and berths. The saloons are sixty feet in 

 length, the principal one nearly half the width of the vessel, and lighted by 

 skylights from the upper deck. On either side are the cabins and berths, 

 those of first-class being commodious rooms, large enough to contain every 

 requirement of the most fastidious of landsmen. The thickness of the lower 

 deck will prevent any sound from the engine-rooms reaching the passengers, 

 and the vibration from being at all felt by them. Each side of the engine- 

 rooms is a tunnel, through which the steam and water pipes will be carried, 

 and also rails for economizing labor in conveyance of coal. .The berths of 

 the crew are forward, below the forecastle, which it is intended to appropriate 



