HIS PLAN OF HOLLOW WATER LINES. 85 



iron. The Menai bad three 

 keels, thus ; this was to pre- 

 vent rolling, which it did to 

 a great extent. Mr. Smith 

 was always for hollow water 

 lines, and was determined to 

 l)rove their value on a large 



scale for sea-going steamers. For this purpose he ordered 

 the Fire-king (1840) to be built according to his own models 

 with long very fine hollow water lines. This vessel was 

 built at the Duke of Rutland's ship-building yard at Trorn, 

 and lay on the stocks for about two years, during which 

 time she was visited by many ship-builders and others 

 interested in steam-vessels, by whom the model was uni- 

 formly condemned. After she was finished the speed and 

 the ease with which she went through the water astonished 

 every one ; and while the vessel's success wrought a com- 

 plete change in the minds of all, it fully established the 

 value of ]Mr. Smith's lines for all vessels, especially where 

 great speed is required. I call them Mr. Smith's lines, for, 

 although Mr. Scott Russell claimed them as his, I know 

 that Mr, Smith, in 1829, wanted the Menai built with 

 hollow lines, and that the Fire-king was the Jlrst steam-ship 

 that practically proved the value of hollow water lines for 

 great speed, &c."* 



Mr. Napier thus more fully describes in another letter 

 Mr. Smith's determination to adopt his own favourite lines : 

 " It is a fact that Mr. Smith, when he ordered the Menai 

 from me in 1829, wanted her built with hollow water lines, 

 similar to the lin^s of his sailing yacht Menai. But there 



* Mr. Napier says elsewhere, " Mr. Smith had natural abilities 

 of a very high order, with intuitive knowledge of a most varied 

 and extensive kind, which, without any pretension to scientific ac- 

 quirements, seldom, if ever, failed in enabling him to gain the objects 

 he had in view. In everything his aim was to be the best and have 

 the best." 



