304 : The Atlantic 



be launched sideways, and unfortunately she stuck on the ways before 

 reaching the water. It took months of work before she was finally 

 afloat, and in the meantime the company that built her had failed. 

 Later she commenced operation but was never popular or successful. 

 She was, however, so large and so powerful that she performed one 

 kind of lasting service that no other vessel was able to accomplish. She 

 was used for laying many of the transatlantic cables, which is another 

 story. After her cable service she ran aground, and when she was 

 finally raised she was anchored off a World's Exhibition where she 

 wound up as a vast and vulgar entertainment showpiece that was 

 visited by thousands. 



Despite the misfortune to his vessels, Brunei was a great engineer; 

 his essential misfortune was that he was working ahead of his time. 

 He demonstrated the value of metal construction in hulls. Despite 

 her grounding on the Irish shore, the Great Britain survived a 

 pounding for a period of months that would have destroyed any 

 wooden hull. She was refloated and later used, and the Great Eastern s 

 hull stood years of punishment. She was the first vessel built with a 

 double hull to the water line. Brunei was correct in his intention to 

 make this an important feature of safe construction. He also demon- 

 strated the advantage of having the space provided between the hulls 

 for use as ballast tanks. 



Brunei's were not the only steamers that had an unfortunate his- 

 tory. Though late in its decision, the United States government 

 decided to match the subsidies on steamship building that the British 

 government was providing to Samuel Cunard. With such subsidies 

 the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, in 1847, completed the 

 steamers Washington and Hermann, but they were never a great suc- 

 cess. In 1848 a Line to operate between New York and Havre built the 

 Humboldt and the FranJ^in, but the Humboldt ran aground in 1853 

 and the Franklin followed suit in 1854. In 1852 E. K. Collins, who had 

 so successfully operated the New Orleans packets, and later with Palm- 

 er's help had built up the transatlantic Dramatic Line of packets, sold 

 his sailing ships and commenced building a line of large and luxuri- 

 ous steamers. The first of these, the Atlantic, was rated as having a 

 tonnage burden of 2,860 with engines of 2,000 horsepower. She 

 crossed the Atlantic in eleven days and ten hours beating a Cunard 

 Liner by thirty-three hours. However, in 1854 Collins' liner Arctic had 

 the misfortune to run into the French steamer, the Vesta, in a fog 

 with a loss of 300 lives. This tragedy no doubt had something to do 

 with Maury's proposal of 1855 to establish international steamer lanes. 



