SHIP-BUILDING. 



505 



by 34 inches. The side keelsons under the engines 

 were wliite oak, 22 by 42 inches ; elsewhere, of yellow 

 pine. The l>eams were mainly yellow pine, except- 

 ing some white pine in the spar and orlop decks ; 

 the lower and main deck beams, side 12 to 14 inches, 

 and moulded 13 inches at the centre and 10 inches 

 at the ends ; the spar deck beams, 6^ by 8 inches at 

 the centre. The decks were of white pine : orlop 

 deck 3 inches, lower deck 3J, main 4, and spar deck 

 3. The bulwarks were 3-inch white pine. The 

 knees were white oak and hackmatack. The hull 

 was square, fastened witli two f-inch copper bolts and 

 two locust treenails toa draught of 20 feet ; above that, 

 galvanized iron and treenails were used. The frame 

 was strapped with iron crossing amidships like lattice- 

 work, with a spacing of 4 feet. There were two side 

 lever engines : cylinders, 95 inches in diameter, 10 

 feet stroke. There were four tubular boilers, 22 feet 

 long by 14J feet high, two of them 14 feet wide and 

 two 15 feet wide. The hull weighed about 1525 

 tons, and masts and rigging 31 tons. On a draught 

 of 19} feet forward and 20 feet aft 2000 tons of 

 freight and 250 passengers could be carried. 



The service began with these vessels in 1851, nnd 

 they be.it the Cunarders from the start by about one 

 clay. They enjoyed the confidence and the patron- 

 age of the travelling public, and in eight years from 

 tlie time they began passenger traffic increased five- 

 fold. From January to November, 1852, they carried 

 4306 passengers to the 2909 who went by the Cunard 

 Line, and their competition reduced the cost of 

 freight to Livj.-pool from 7^ to 4. 



The Cunard Line at once began to put on larger 

 and faster steamers. Collins' mail allowance was 

 made 8858,000, and greater speed was required of 

 him, and he met the requirements. Unfortunately, 

 the Arctic wis lost in 1854 and tha Pacific in 185(5. 

 In 1855 the Adriatic, of 4144 tons, was built, at a cost 

 of 81,100,000. She was 345 feet long by 50 beam 

 by 33 feet depth. She made a trip in 1861 from 

 Saint John's, N. F., to Galway iu 5 days 19| hours. 



Beginning in 1853, the feeling against subsidies 

 was awakened, and it continues to this day ; while, an 

 a matter of fact, the granting of subsidies i.s a busi- 

 ness-like application of statesmanship, and its con- 

 tinuation would have kept us in the front rank in 

 the transatlantic trade, and could not have failed to 

 have been of the greatest value to our ocean com- 

 merce, our ship-builders and ship owners, our people 

 and our country. In 1857 the Collins mail contracts 

 expired, and the government refused to renew them ; 

 Mi - . Mills suffered in the same \v;iy. 



The English were then paying $866,700 a year to 

 the Cunard line, and smaller sums to other lines, 

 and as Mr. Mills and Mr. Collins could not compete 

 with England's treasury they were forced to with- 

 draw and sell their ships, and the United States de- 

 liberately turned over the vast mail, express freight, 

 and passenger business of this country with Europe 

 to foreign ships. Iu 1856 Mr. Vauderbilt started a 

 line to Havre, but soon gave it up. During the 

 civil war the foreign lines got a very strong foothold. 

 In 1886 an American line was formed in Boston, and 

 two large oak-built screw steamers, the Erie and 

 Ontario, were started to run between Boston and 

 Liverpool. The English steamers immediately cut 

 rates, and soon the American ships had to be with- 

 drawn. A line was afterward started from Balti- 

 more in connection with the B. & O. R. K., but had 

 only a brief existence. 



An American steamship line was started in 1873 to 

 run from Philadelphia to Liverpool, and it still lives ; 

 but few American lines have been started at other 

 points. The coasting lines, urich as the Clydes and 

 the Red D. have extended their trade to Cuba and 

 Mexico. Commodore Garrison ran a few wooden 

 steamers from New York to Brazil after th? war, aided 

 VOL. IV. 2o 



j by a subsidy, and John Roach ran a line of steamers 

 from 1878 to 1881. The Pacific Mail has sent steam- 

 ers to the Sandwich Islands, Japan, China, and 

 Australia. 



America is renowned for nothing more than for 

 her river steam-boats, the necessities of internal nav- 

 igation developing this class of vessels earlier than 

 oceap steamers. As the Mississippi and its tributa- 

 ries drain a region of 1,250,000 square miles in ex- 

 tent, embracing nineteen States rich in products of 

 every kind, and several growing Territories, using the 

 streams as commercial highways, it is natural that 

 there should be a great demand for vessels to trav- 

 erse them. Certain restrictions were put upon 

 builders by the character of the rivers to be navigat- 



I ed, owing to the light draughts necessary. The 

 western boats are marvels in the way of light-draught 

 construction, as (here are vessels which on six feet 

 draught of water carry 20CO tons of freight. These 

 boats, to ascend the river against strong currents and 

 to tow a large number of barges, must be fitted with 

 engines of great power, and the weight of the engine 

 has been greatly rednced on this account. The 

 walking beam and the condenser was soon dispensed 

 with, the engines being so placed as to act directly 

 on the paddle-shaft. The earlier steamers -were 

 mostly side wheelers, but after 1850 the stern wheel- 

 er came into favor, and they now outnumber the 

 side wheelers three to one. 



Fulton and Livingston in 1811 built at Pittsburg 

 the stern-wheel boat Orleans, of 200 tons, rigptd 

 with masts and sails. She used wood for fuel. She 

 was strongly flamed, but had no guards or up) et 

 works. She arrived at New Orleans, Jan. 10, 1812, 

 for the first time. She made about three miles an 

 hour. After running as a packet between New Or- 

 leans and Natchez for about two years she was sunk 

 by a snag in 1814. Before this the navigation liad 

 been by flat-boats, pushed along with poles or long 

 sweeps, or by small sail- boats. The availability of the 

 steamer was at once apparent, and they weie built 

 rapidly from this time on. Thestern-wheeler Con.et, 

 with vibrating engines, was built in 3813, and lan to 

 New Orleans, where her machinery was sold to a cot- 

 ton factory. The Vesuvius was built at Pittsbuig by 

 Fulton in 1813, and a small steamer of 50 tons was 

 built at Brownsville, on the Monongahela, in 1814, 

 and the same year the Etna, of 300 tons, was built at 

 Pittsburg. Ihe Washington, the first boat with 

 two decks, was built at Wheeling. The machinery, 

 which in previous beats was in the hold, was in her 

 brought up on deck, where it is still placed in the 

 boats now in use on the western rivers. 



Preceding boats had such low-power engines that 

 they could only be employed on the lower Missis- 

 sippi and Ohio when the current was less than three 

 miles an hour, and they could never get up the swifter 

 rivers after having once pone down. The Washing- 

 ton, however, was a powerful boat for her day, and 

 was able to make a round trip from New Orleans to 

 just below the falls at Louisville and back in 45 

 days. Her success started the building of a nmpber 

 of "steam -boats along the Ohio, where nearly nil the 

 earlier boats were built, and where about five-six! lis 

 of the boats of the Mississippi Valley are built now. 

 In 1818 the General Pike was built at Cincinnati for 

 passenger traffic. She was 100 feet long on the keel, 

 25 feet beam, and had a handsome cabin built on the 

 deck between the engines. The central hall was 40 

 by 18 feet, with 8 state-rooms at one end and 6 at tha 

 other. She ran as a packet between Louisville, 

 Cincinnati, and Maysville. 



There were but few Eastern boats used on the West- 

 ern rivers. The Maid of Orleans, of 100 tons, was 

 sent from Philadelphia in 1818 and went up the river 

 as far as Louisville, being the first vessel to reach that 

 city from an Atlantic port. She was a two-masted 



