196 REPORT—1857. 
of the ship; the third point would be the distribution of materials in the construc- 
tion of the ship, so as to obtain the safest and strongest possible structure with the 
minimum of materials; and the last point would be to allude generally to the 
mechanical arrangements for her propulsion. With respect to size, it was generally 
supposed that, as a practical shipbuilder, he was an advocate for big ships. The 
contrary, however, was the fact. There were cases in which big ships were good, 
and there were certain cases in which big ships were ruinous to their owners. In 
every case the smallest ship that would supply the convenience of trade was the right 
ship to build. He came there as an advocate of little ships; and it was the pecu- 
liarity of the ‘Great Eastern’ that she was the smallest ship capable of doing the work 
she was intended to do; and he believed that if she answered the purpose for which 
she was designed, she would continue to be the smallest ship possible for her voyage. 
It was found by experience that no steam-ship could be worked profitably which 
was of less size than a ton to a mile of the voyage she was to perform, carrying 
her own coal. Thus, a ship intended to ply between England and America would 
not pay permanently unless she were of 2500 or 3000 tons burden. In like man- 
ner, if a vessel were intended to go from this country to Australia or India, without 
coaling on going out, but taking her coals with her, she would require to be 13,000 
tons burden. And turning to the case before them, it would be found that the big 
ship was a little short of the proper size. Her voyage to Australia and back would 
be 25,000 miles; her tonnage, therefore, should be 25,000 tons, whereas its actual 
amount was 22,000 tons. The idea of making a ship large enough to carry her own 
coals for a voyage to Australia and back again was the idea of a man famous for 
large ideas—Mr. Brunel. He suggested the matter to him (Mr. Russell) as a prac- 
tical shipbuilder, and the result was the monster vessel which he was about to 
describe. 
He had peculiar pleasure in laying a description of the lines of the ship before 
the present meeting, because the ship, as a naval structure, as far as her lines 
were concerned, was a child of the British Association. It was twenty-two years 
since they had the pleasure of meeting together in Dublin. On that occasion he 
laid before the Mechanical Section a form of construction which had since become 
well known as the “ wave-line.’”” The Section received the idea so well that it ap- 
pointed a committee to examine into the matter, with the intention, if they found the 
‘wave principle to be the true principle, to proclaim it to the world. The committee 
pursued its investigations, publishing the results in the accountof their ‘Transactions ;’ 
and from that time to the present he had continued to make large and small vessels 
on the wave principle; and the diffusion of the knowledge of this system through 
the ‘ Transactions of the British Association’ had led to its almost universal adop- 
“tion. Wherever they found asteam-vessel with a high reputation for speed, economy 
of fuel, and good qualities at sea, he would undertake to say that they would find 
that she was constructed on the wave principle. 
He would endeavour to explain what were the principles of the waye-line as di- 
stinguished from the older-fashioned modes of building, and how they were carried 
out in the big ship. All practical men knew that the first thing a shipbuilder had to 
think of was what was called the midship section of the vessel: that was, the sec- 
tion which would be made if the vessel were cut through the middle, and the spec- 
tator saw the cut portions. Mr. Russell here pointed out a diagram of the midship 
section of the ‘ Wave,’.a small vessel about 7% tons burden, which was the first ever 
constructed upon that principle. Now the first thing to be done in building a steam- 
vessel was to make a calculation of the size of the midship section in the water. In | 
sailing from one place to another, it was necessary to excavate a canal out of the 
water large enough to allow the whole body of the ship to pass through. The pro- 
blem was, how to do that most economically; and this was effected by making the 
canal as narrow and as shallow as possible, so that there would be the smallest 
quantity of water possible to excavate. Therefore it was that the shipbuilder 
endeavoured to obtain as small a midship section as he could; and that had been 
effected in the case of the big ship, whose midship section was small »—not small — 
absolutely, but small in proportion. 
In increasing the tonnage of a ship, three things had to be considered, the paying — 
power, the propelling power, and the dimensions. Mr. Russell then entered into a 
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