SHIP-BUILDING. 



509 



stern, and is supported on four or five pine posts. ' 

 Light collision bulkheads are built at the bow and ! 

 stern, and when the hold is intended for grain or 

 packages it is ceiled up in such a manner as to form 

 a cargo box, with an air-space of as much as two feet 

 between the ceiling and the frames. A barge, 200 

 feet long, 36 feet beam, and 6J feet hold, with a 

 cargo box 169 feet by 33 feet by 11 feet, costs about 

 $9000. 



The great highway of travel and trade in Oregon 

 is the Columbia river, ocean steamers from San 

 Francisco ascending the river as far as Astoria and 

 Portland, numerous small steam-boats carrying 

 freight and passengers farther into the interior. 

 Steam-boat building was begun about 1850. The 

 Eliza Anderson was built at Portland in 1858, and 

 by her longevity showed the advantage of using 

 properly seasoned yellow fir for boat-building. The 

 earlier boats were side-wheelers, but the later ones 

 are stem-wheelers, which are better adapted to 

 shallow waters. The Columbia river stern -wheelers 

 are not similar to those of the Mississippi Valley 

 described above. The keel, forward, begins to rise 

 15 or 20 feet from the bow and runs into a rocker 

 stem ; aft, the stem is not separated into two parts, 

 but the bottom begins to rise 20 or 30 feet from the 

 rudder and nearly reaches the surface at the stern, 

 which is cut off square above the water. Sagging 

 is prevented by iron rods hooking into the keelsons 

 forward and aft, running up to a line of masts, and 

 these are screwed up till they take the weight off the 

 low and stern. The hulls are made of fir, the 

 Louses of white cedar and fir. The central masts 

 are carried high up, as there are no bridges to in- 

 terfere. The barges are somewhat similar to the 

 ones described above, nearly all, however, having 

 small houses on deck. There are small schooners 

 on the river dealing in butter, eggs, and produce, 

 that are fitted with small auxiliary propellers for go- 

 ing against tide and current. 



The pioneer of the lake steamers was the On- 

 tario, of 232 tons, built at Sackett's Harbor, in 

 1816, a side-wheeler, 110 foot long. The next vessel 

 built on the American side was the Walk-in-the- 

 WiiN.-r, of 34-2 tons, built at Black Bock in 1818. 

 In the following ten years twenty steamers were 

 built on the lakes of Ontario and Erie, mostly on 

 the American side, all side-wheel boats. 



The Welland Canal was opened in 1829, and 

 stamped a special character on lake vessels. The 

 smallest looks were 110 feet long, 22 feet wide, and 

 8 feet deep. The sailing vessels were thereafter 

 made with bluff, full forms, with round bows, flat 

 bottoms, and straight bodies, in this way securing 

 the greatest capacity ; and steamers intended to pass 

 through the canal approximated to the same form. 



The steamers intended for local traffic kept a sharp 

 form, and were never shallow as the eastern river 

 boats. Many of the steamers were side-wheelers, 

 ranging from 250 to 600 tons, occasionally larger. 

 The engines were of the low-pressure walking-beam 

 typo, and were fitted with masts and sails for use in 

 caw of injury to the machinery. 



The Walk-in-the-Water went to Detroit as early 

 as 1818, and by 1830 steam-boats were running regu- 

 larly to Chicago. The number of boats increased 

 rapidly after the opening of the canal, and the size 

 II.-J.MM to increase rapidly after 1844, a number of 

 long, fast sharps being built from that time on. 

 They were built mainiy of oak, the decks, houses, 

 and spars being of white pine. They had very high 

 and sumptuously furnished cabins. The Plymouth ' 

 Bock, built in 1854, 310 feet long, and the'City of j 

 Buffalo, built in 1857, were among the last of the | 

 large side-wheelers built. About 300 side-wheelers I 

 were built in all, but now not more than 3 or 4 are j 

 produced yearly, and these not above 800 tons ; and 



many of the old side-wheelers were converted into 

 propellers, and others into floating docks and barges. 



The Welland Canal being impassable by the large 

 side-wheelers, and many important harbors being on 

 rivers and canals, screws came into favor. 



The first propeller on the lakes was the Vandalia, 

 of 138 tons, built at Oswego, N. Y., in 1841. She 

 was fitted with a mast and sail, with machinery 

 well aft, the smoke-stack being nearly in the stern. 

 In ten years 53 screw vessels were built, ranging in 

 size from 150 to 700 tons. The vast freight traffic 

 of the lakes has called for larger vessels, and tho 

 canal has twice had the sizes of the locks increased. 



The vessels employed exclusively for freight are 

 called steam-barges. These have small houses for- 

 ward and aft, and sometimes as many as four masts. 

 These barges carry coal, grain, iron ore, and lumber. 



The machinery is placed aft in the lake propellers, 

 and when not loaded the bow sits high up out 

 of the water. This is convenient when loading, but 

 the rough weather of the lakes strains the vessel 

 when unloaded ; so the hog frame was early adopted, 

 and it was given tho form of an arch sweeping in a 

 long curve from end to end of the ship, the top 

 chord made of several thicknesses of 6- or 8-inch oak 

 breaking joints. These arches being in tho way, es- 

 pecially in handling lumber, they have been dropped, 

 and strength is now secured by strapping the hulls 

 on the outside of the frames and ceiling them 

 heavily with oak, broad arches often being bolted to 

 the inner side of tho hold timbers. 



IBON SHIP-BUILDING. 



The first iron boat known to have been built in 

 the United States was the Codorus, built in Penn- 

 sylvania for service on the Susqnehanna. New York 

 led in the early iron building. In 1836 an iron ves- 

 sel of 600 tens was built there. In 1838 an iron 

 boat was built at Pittsburg, and in 1841 a revenue 

 cuttrr was built at Boston, and by 1842 Philadelphia 

 had built a lino of email iron steam-boats to trade 

 with Hartford, Conn. The iron hulls were first 

 built by boiler-makers ; there was but little shnpo 

 given to the vessel, the bottom being built on a 

 platform and the sides brought up vertical, tho 

 frames being put in last. However, the ship-builders 

 in wood were appealed to and they soon began to 

 put in tools for building the iron hulls; and they 

 were not contented with box-like shapes but soon 

 brought the lines of the iron vessel up to those of 

 the wooden vessel. While the greatest ingenuity 

 and mechanical skill and knowledge were shown in 

 binding together and strengthening the hulls of 

 wooden vessels, the great horse-power and lengths 

 required for high-speed vessels called for a stronger 

 material than wood, and the iron ship became a ne- 

 cessity. The earlier vessels were framed much in 

 the same way as the wooden vessels, but very soon 

 the iron vessel took a distinctive character very dif- 

 ferent from the wooden vessels. A history of iron 

 ship-building is mainly the history of the well-known 

 ship-yards of this country. Win. H. Webb stands at 

 the front as a wooden ship-builder, and the names of 

 Cramp and Roach are known the world over as 

 builders of steel and iron vessels. The United 

 States has furnished many vessels to foreign govern- 

 ments. Wm. H. Webb built the Be d' Italia and the 

 Be Don Luigi de Portugallo for the Italian govern- 

 ment, the former making 14 knots on her first trial, 

 using only four boilers out of six. Webb also built 

 the iron-clad Bochambeau, now owned by France. 

 In Boston the Atlantic works built vessels and ma- 

 chinery for a great many different nations and dur- 

 ing the war turned out a number of monitors. In 

 1858 there was quite a movement in the direction of 

 iron ship-building in New York. The side-wheel 

 steamer Suchil was launched from Bell's yard in 43 



