220 ISLES OF SUMMER. 
engines are used for clearing the bilge and for some other pur- 
- poses; three or four for loading and unloading cargoes; one 
. for the anchor and the sails; one in part for supplying water 
. closets with watcr; one for operating a steam steering apparatus; 
one for operating a newly devised governor, which so controls 
-and governs the propeller that it cannot make more than a cer- 
tain number of revolutions per minute. This last takes the place 
of a man who had formerly to devote all his time to this work. 
These engines are in addition to the main engine for pumping 
- out the ship. There are six water tight iron compartments in 
the ship, and if one should be stove in or should spring a leak 
. from any cause, the others would float her while the great cir- 
. culating pump of the condenser would be brought into requisi- 
-- tion, whose power.to discharge water is very great. 
The crew number forty-seven, and the monthly pay-roll is 
about $2,000. The powerful and complicated machine requires 
constant watchfulness and the greatest care. To lubricate it 
. one and one-half barrels of oil are used every trip. The aver- 
: age consumption of coal is 130 tons for a roundtrip. The aver- 
-.age length of the voyage is from fifty-five to sixty hours. The 
Savannah has once gone from dock to dock in fifty-two hours 
_ and thirty minutes. 
'. The regular sea route from New. York to Savannah is not 
_through any part of the Gulf Stream, that immense river of 
_ warm water, a thousand times larger than the Mississippi, which 
flows in a cold water bed, and helps to temper the severity of 
the frigid and frozen North ; but between that great and, as yet, 
inexplicable phenomenon of the ocean, and its beautifully wind- 
ing western shore, our steamer grandly plowed its way. Like 
the ‘‘shining shore” of the ‘better land,” we well knew, that 
although invisible to our material eyes, it was near at hand. 
:: This passing in a few hours from ice-bridged rivers with snow- 
