March 4, 1875 J 



NATURE 



343 



so that the floor of the saloon will, under'all circumstances, 

 be very nearly level. 



The Bessemer is 350 ft. long, 40 ft. wide along the 

 deck-beam, and 64 ft. wide across the paddle-boxes. She 

 will be propelled at a speed of eighteen to twenty miles an 

 hour by two pairs of engires of the collective indicated 

 power of 4,600 horses. The centres of the two pairs of 

 paddle wheels will be about 106 ft. apart. 



The Bessemer saloon contains the main saloon, which 

 is about 40 ft. long by 29 ft. wide, and 20 ft. high, six 

 spacious retiring rooms, a refreshment room, lavatories, 

 store rooms, Ac. The decorations and fittings of the main 

 saloon will be of the very best description, Mr. Bessemer 

 having given fhis branch of the design his most careful 

 attention. The retiiing rooms, as well as the main 

 saloon, are ventilated and heated by a very ingenious 

 arrangement of fans, pipes, &c., which supply and exhaust 

 air in an almost imperceptible manner. 



Between the paddle-boxes on either side, and on the 

 upper deck at the middle of the vessel, there are numerous 

 private cabins for the accommodation of first-class 

 passengers, and all of these cabins will be fitted up in a 

 manner that will help to make the journey across the 

 Channel as pleasant as possible. In addition to these, at 

 one end of the vessel between the decks there is a fixed 

 saloon about 52 ft. long, for second-class passengers. 

 The luggage will be stowed in the hold at the opposite 

 end of the ship to this fixed saloon, and two very inge- 

 niously contrived hydraulic luggage cranes, fitted by 

 Messrs. Brown, Bros., will be employed for lifting luggage 

 off the pier and depositing it in the luggage hold, and 

 vice versd, in a very expeditious manner. 



The Bessemer saloon, however, will be by far the finest 

 cabin that has ever been fitted in a ship. Its great size 

 and height enables it to be ventilated imperceptibly, and 

 will prevent passengers who use it from feeling the un- 

 pleasant sensations usually connected with going below. 

 But one of the great advantages of this saloon is, that 

 whatever motion the ship may take from the waves — 

 and this, from the jdaptation of her form to passivity 

 among Channel waves, will be slight — the saloon will be 

 practically free from it. It is in the middle of the ship 

 as regards length and breadth, and the axis of rotation 

 is at a height where there is least motion, so that as 

 regards its position it is one in which the vertical and 

 lateral motions produced in every part of the ship by the 

 pitching and rolling will be small, and usually scarcely 

 appreciable. The saloon also will have very little 

 pitching motion, for the form of the vessel renders it 

 impossible for the sea of the Straits of Dover to raise 

 her low freeboard ends very considerably ; and even the 

 small effects produced at the ends of the ship will be re- 

 duced to about one-seventh at the extremities of the saloon. 



From the foregoing remarks it is evident that every- 

 thing that promises to secure the passengers immunity 

 from sea-sickness has been provided. In the saloon 

 rolling and pitching motions will not be inconveniently 

 felt, and any lateral or veitical movements that may be 

 set up in the ship (and these must be obviously small 

 when the main features of the design for preventing 

 them are taken into account) wiU only be communicated 

 to the saloon to the extent to which they exist at that 

 part of the vessel where they are necessarily small. 



It was intended by Mr. Bessemer to keep the floor of 

 the suspended saloon level by means of an automatic 

 apparatus which involved both the principle of the r;vro- 

 scope and of Barker's mill. Certain practical difficulties, 

 however, have led him to abandon that idea for the more 

 simple and less costly plan which we will now attempt to 

 describe. Immediately outside one of the ends of the 

 saloon, and attached to the frames of the vessel, there is 

 a pair of powerful pumping-engines. These engines keep 

 up a constant supply of water to a large cyhndrical accu- 

 mulator. The hydraulic pressure so obtained is trans- 

 mitted through pipes which pess through the hollow axle 

 supporting the nearest end of the saloon to a very irt'e- 

 niously contrived cylindrical slide balanced valve, -.a hich 

 is placed on the athwartship floor girders near the middle 

 of the saloon. The hydraulic pressure is next trans- 

 mitted through the valve and through another system of 

 pipes to two tipping cylinders, which are fitted one on 

 each side of the vessel at the middle of the length 

 of the saloon. These cylinders have their lov.'er ends 

 attached to two very strong athwart-ship girders, while 

 the upper ends of the piston-rods are connected to 

 the lower side of the upper deck. It will be readily 

 perceived that the forces necessary to keep the floor of 

 the saloon level are exerted en the ends of the athwart- 

 ship girders just mentioned by means of the two sets 

 of tipping gear. The direction of application of the 

 h) draulic pressure on the pistons in the tipping cylinders 

 is governed by means of a system of levers connected 

 with the equilibrium valve. Near the end of the primary 

 lever, and on its upper side, is fixed a spirit-level, and the 

 man whose duty it is to work this lever regulates the dis- 

 tance through which he elevates or depresses the primary 

 lever, so as to keep the air-bubble as near as possible 

 coincident with the central mark on the level. It is 

 assumed by this arrangement that when the spirit-level 

 is "well" the floor of the saloon will be level, whatever 

 rolling motion the vessel herself may have ; and since 

 this level is placed near the centre of gravity of the vessel 

 where the angular motion is generally least, there can be 

 no doubt that the saloon will at aU times be pretty 

 uniformly level 



THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA 



1 he Encyc'.opccdia Britatiuica. Ninth Edition. Edited 

 by Prof Spencer Baynes. Vol. I. A to ANA. (Edin- 

 burgh : Adam and Charles Black.) 

 THE first volume of the ninth edition of the " Ency- 

 clopasdia Britannica " has just been issued, hand- 

 somely printed and copiously illustrated. 



The first edition of this venerable work was announced 

 rather more than a century ago, as it began to be 

 published in parts in "the year 1771. The projector 

 of the work was an Edinburgh printer of the time, Mr. 

 Colin M'Farquhar, and the editor and chief ccm;pi!er was 

 Mr. Smellie, also a printer. Another gentleman asso- 

 ciated in the production of the work was Mr. Andrew 

 Bell, a well-known Edinburgh engraver of the period. 



The first edition ignored biographical, historical, and 

 L;eographical matters ; but these subjects were effectively 

 introduced in the second edition, and have formed an 

 important feature in subsequent issues. The second 



