214 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[July, 



pumps is represented as sufficient for two engines, but under certain 

 circumstances two would be preferable. The space and weight 

 required for a pair of engines with two double action air pumps 

 would not much exceed the space and weight with one, and still be 

 very considerably imder what two common bucket valve pumps would 

 require. 



Reference to the Engraving. 



Figs. 1 and 2 side view ; figs. Sand 4 section; fig. 5 plan ; and fig. 6 

 section of air pump and condenser. Similar letters refer to similar parts 

 OQ all the figures : A, cylinders ; B, pistons ; C, piston rods ; D, con- 

 necting rods ; E, crank pins ; F, cranks ; G, crank and paddle wheel 

 shafts; H, crank shaft entablatures ; I, framings; K, piston cross-head 

 guides: L, cylinder covers; M and N, force and bilge water pump 

 wipers; O and P, steam valve, traversing shaft wipers; Q, piston 

 valve spindles ; R, piston valves ; S, expansion valves ; T, cross head 

 guide pulleys; U, piston valve casings; V, expansion valve casings; 

 W, steam pipe glandular joints; X, columns forming lower part of 

 framing ; Y, engine deck beams of vessel ; Z, cylinder water scape 

 valves. 



Fig. 3 : a, condenser ; 6, passages from condenser to foot valves ; 

 c, valve doors; d' d, upper and lower foot valves; e' e, upper and 

 lower discharge valves; /, air pump piston plunger; g, air pump 

 plunger rod ; h, air pump connecting rod ; i, air pump cross head 

 pulley guides; k, crank for working air pump ; I, air pump piston rod 

 gland ; m, air pump piston rod stuffing box ; n, pipe for rendering 

 unnecessary a stuffing box on air pump cover; o, air pump cover; 

 J), hot well cistern; q, air pump chamber ; r, jointings of air pump to 

 sides of condenser; s, condenser cover; /, bilge water pumps; a, 

 feed pumps ; v, valves for closing eduction passages, in the event of 

 one engine being wrought singly. 



THE ROYAL MAIL STEAM PACKET COMPANY. 



We admire the adventure and majesty of this undertaking; we 

 respect, both as merchants and men, those who preside over its 

 destinies ; but we look upon them as the most ineligible managers of 

 a steam packet company that the annals of steam enterprise can ex- 

 hibit, and are quite worn out with the untractable incapacity which 

 shines through all their proceedings. Never was an enterprise begun 

 under happier auspices. With a directory numbering some of the 

 most august names among British merchants, with an influential con- 

 nexion abroad, a most respectable proprietary at home and a most 

 beneficial contract with the Government, success appeared certain and 

 rivalry impossible; and never did mismanagement move effectually 

 render " these rich gifts poor," or more speedily transform a scene of 

 noble promise into a chaos of withered hopes, forlorn greatness, and 

 wide-spread desolation. 



We have patiently waited month after month, in the fond hope that 

 some such amelioration would be accomplished as would at least give 

 the enterprise a chance of success. We have suggested — we have 

 remonstrated — we have entreated : and holding in mind the deep 

 interest which many of our friends have in the undertaking — consider- 

 ing the baneful effect which the mismanagement of this company 

 would indirectly exercise upon other companies, even the best ma- 

 naged — and foreseeing the deplorable consequences that would ensue 

 to the national interests in general, and to the interests embarked in 

 steam navigation in particular, from the utter failure of this scheme — 

 we have left no stone unturned to induce the voluntary adoption of 

 such measures as are best calculated to avert such a catastrophe. But 

 it all will not do. The directors, deaf to the outcry of the public, which 

 is roused to a man against them — regardless of having rendered them- 

 selves the subjects of unprecedented odium and universal derision — 

 heedless of the pressure of accumulating difficulties, which every 

 instant threaten to overwhelm them — persevere, nevertheless, in the 

 very course that has already created all these disasters, and are still 

 distinguisiied only for the same inordinate self-sufficiency, the same 



futile dogmatism, and the same wanton temerity, which characterized 

 the first hour of their hapless administration. 



It becomes, then, a question of supreme importance, What remedy 

 is to be sought for this state of things? and it concerns the proprietary 

 dee|ily that a prompt and judicious answer should be given to this 

 question. Happily the answer is not a difficult one ; for as it would 

 appear to be indisputable, ami is indeed the universal sentiment, that 

 mismanagement has occasioned all the past evils, the obvious way to 

 prevent the recurrence of those evils is to change the management. 

 This, we presume, the proprietary have it in their power to do ; and 

 if they have not, it would be a thousand times better to break up the 

 Company altogether, than to endure the continuance of the present 

 alarming state of things. It is the wisest policy to look the difficulties 

 of the question fairly in the face, and certain it is that a bad compro- 

 mise now is better than the prosecution of a scheme which, under the 

 existing conditions, must terminate fatally. It is high time that the 

 proprietary should search the business to the very bottom for them- 

 selves, and insist upon the execution of such measures as are essential 

 to the general good. It is the only chance they have of saving any 

 thing from the embers. 



The very christening of this Company introduces us to — if not a species 

 of artifice, at least to something so very like it that we are at a loss for 

 any other name by which to distinguish it. We should be glad to 

 know why this company is called " The Royal Mail Company," as if 

 there were no other Royal Mail Companies besides it. The City of 

 Dublin Company, the Peninsular and Oriental Company, the Halifax 

 Company, and others, are quite as much entitled to the appellation as 

 this helpless leviathan ; they, loo, carry letter bags: and whether the 

 design of this arrogated distinctive title was or was not to delude the 

 ignorant into the belief that this Company possessed some peculiar 

 immunity, or maintained some intimate species of connexion with 

 Government not common to its contemporaries, such certainly has 

 been the effect. But we pass over this trifling delinquency — though, 

 in our eyes, unfair to other companies, and unworthy of a great enter- 

 prise, to notice topics of more stirring interest. 



The assumed average speed of the vessels is at least one knot per hour 

 too high. — The vessels have never kept their times, and they never 

 can do so. The computations of the average speed are founded upon 

 hypothetical and visionary considerations, not upon a knowledge of 

 the performance of other vessels. The average speeds of the Great 

 Western and the Tagus, as determined by the actual results of a 

 number of voyages, are S-3 and S-2o knots respectively ; and those 

 vessels are among the most efficient afloat, certainly quite as speedy 

 as any of the West India Mail Company's vessels. Yet the average 

 speed which these last vessels are pre-determined to perform is, in 

 some cases, as high as 10'4 knots per hour, and in no one instance so 

 low as that of the ascertained speed of the Tagus or Great Western. 

 Besides, the times of the mail arrivals should not be the times due to 

 the average speeds but to the minimum speeds ; the mails should 

 never be late except from some extraordinary stress of weather, or 

 some accident to the machinery. The times allowed for coaling are 

 short enough under the most auspicious circumstances, and cannot be 

 reckoned average times. The directors, in respect of time, have 

 agreed to do more than they can do, or indeed than, with their vessels, 

 can be done ; and even were the contemplated speed attainable with 

 the present vessels, it would be highly inexpedient to attain it, as 

 such could only be done at an expense altogether disproportionate to 

 the beneSt derived. The consumption of fuel and general expence of 

 maintenance increase with the speed in a wonderfully rapid ratio. 

 The resistance increases as the square of the velocity, the power 

 necessary to overcome that resistance as the cube of the velocity, and 

 the expense in a more rapid ratio still, on account of the increased size 

 and immersion of the ship. A vessel which, at the speed of knots per 

 hour, would only cost 1/. per hour for coals, would, at the speed of 

 12 knots per hour, cost 10/. per hour, so that the expense of propul- 

 sion through the same distance is 5 times greater with the greater 

 speed. To look for an increased speed, then, as any palliation of the 

 existing difficulties, would be preposterous ; it would only make the 



