. Steam Ships, and Steam Navigation. 133 



pedes the motion of the apparatus, although the Ufting power of 

 the magnets will increase with the pressure. This shows that 

 with the ordinary apparatus, the means of communication is im- 

 perfect, and much power is lost. I have attempted to remedy 

 this by making two or more wires upon each side press upon the 

 same pole changer, but this increases the friction. Increasing the 

 thickness of the wire will allow more free circulation of the 

 fluid, until it reaches the points of contact ; but as this does not 

 increase the surface in contact, it will not remove the whole diffi- 

 culty ; still it is always of great importance to have large commu- 

 nicating wires. 



Art. XYIII. — Steam; Ships, and Steam Navigation; by 

 Junius Smith. 



London, 21st January, 1839. 



TO PROFESSOR SILLIMAN. 



Dear Sir — I was gratified to learn through my friends, Messrs. 

 Wadsworth and Smith of New York, that you discovered indu- 

 bitable marks of mental aberration* in my last letter upon steam 

 ships of war. 



I was gratified because the conclusion to which you came 

 shows that there is something in that letter which took you by 

 surprise, something startling in the application of steam power to 

 the fortune of empires, something new in a statement which 

 shows the difierential degrees of maritime greatness at a glance, 

 something that does not rest upon mathematical calculations, or 

 philosophical experiments, or physical power, or moral influence ,* 

 but something so different from all this that its very elementary 

 principle is weakness, although its force is mechanical. 



The questions you ask are just such, as in my present state of 

 mind, I should expect would be asked, namely, what will be- 

 come of a steam ship upon the wide ocean without masts, in case 

 a boiler bursts, the fuel is exhausted, or the machinery breaks 

 down and the ship is disabled ? My answer is, that she would 

 then be precisely in the situation of an ordinary sailing ship dis- 

 masted, and would of course resort to the same remedy of rigging 

 jury masts. There is no difficulty whatever in having the foot 



* Enthusiasm, not mental aberration. — B. S. 



