10 
POPULAE SCIENCE EEVIEW. 
beMnd — are linked togetker, and being secured bypivot-liinges 
at the side^ are driven through the water as one ship by the 
engine compartment behind them : the front compartment 
serving for cabin accommodation for the crew. The idea 
involved in her construction is that^ as high speed is not an 
object,, small steam-power will suffice to drive such a train 
of compartments through the water from one port to another,, 
and he kept constantly employed — compartments being always 
at each port loading and unloadings while full ones are being 
worked on their voyages. Calculations have been made to 
show that this plan might be very economical. With profits 
and losses or gains of merchantSs howevers we have nothing 
to do here. We have to deal with principleSs and their prac- 
tical apphcation. The idea of a connector- ship or water- 
train is not in itself fundamentally novel. There was a steam 
train on the Indus in 1859^ in which year the Oriental Inland 
Steam Navigation Company attempted to carry out Mr. 
Bourne^s patented plan of a train of barges^ but totally 
failed. 
The idea was that a number of connected barges could be 
towed with the bow-resistance of one steamer only. The 
result of the trial in the harbour of Kurrachee was very 
singular. The speed of the steamer alone was 9*37 statute 
miles per hour,, with 273 indicated horse power. With a 40- 
feet barge the speed was reduced to 7’ 19; with 303 horse 
power^ with a second barge^ to 5*75; with 332 horse power, 
with three barges, to 4*33 miles per hom* — a speed hopeless 
for the navigation of the river. 
The first effort, however, to effect a water-train was long 
anterior to this, and was made by Sir Samuel Bentham in 
1781. This vessel-train was constructed at the Prince 
Potemkiffs works in Bussia, and conveyed the Empress 
Catherine II. down the Dnieper. 
There is, however, as great a difference in principle between 
the horizontal flexibility and requirements of an Indian river- 
train, and the vertical flexibility and requirements of a sea- 
train, as there is between up-and-down and sideways. The 
principal engineering objection against such a sea train is the 
presumed possibility of the dislocation of the compartments 
in rough weather by twist ; but the practical voyages actually 
performed by the model Connector seems to satisfactorily 
solve this question in favour of the ship. In calms, with the 
connector-ships all may be presumed to go on smoothly 
enough. The engine, being behind, gives this advantage over 
the Indus train, that it pushes its load before it through the 
smooth undisturbed sea, while the latter lugged its load after 
it through the troubled waters of its own making — a very 
