A CENTURY OF THE ATLANTIC

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 84, 9 April 1938, Page 27

A CENTURY OF THE ATLANTIC

A wooden dog, holding the Dog Star, Sinus, between its front paws, stands in a gallery at the Science Museum, South Kensington. This, as the actual figurehead of the first vessel to cross the Atlantic under continuous steam power, is the oldest thing in an exhibition designed to illustrate "One Hundred Years of Transatlantic Steam Navigation," ~ says the "Sunday Observer."•-

; When the President of the Board of Trade opened the exhibition he found that the figurehead and a scale model of the little paddle steamer Sirius (of only 703 tons gross) begin a story that ends with a model of the newest and most famous quadruple-screw CunardWhite Star liner. In Southampton Water, beside the immense bulk.of the Queen Mary,- the Sirius which made Atlantic history in April, 1838, would look like a fussing tug.

This Sirius, built of wood in 1837, was intended only for service between London and Cork. In the following April, however, the newly-formed British and American Steam Navigation Company chartered her and she was dispatched from Cork Harbour to America with forty passengers. She left on April 4, one hundred years ago; on the 22nd she arrived off New York, and a few hours later the paddlesteamer Great Western—the first steamer constructed especially to cross the Atlantic —also reached New York,

after a 15-days' voyage at an average speed of 8.2 knots.

The Britannia, next of the models, was the first Cunarder. Dickens, who crossed in her during 1842, objected to the accommodation, and described the saloon as "a long and narrow apartment, not unlike a gigantic hearse, with windows in the side."

Screw-propeller followed paddlewheel; iron succeeded wood. The Great Britain was the first screw steamer, and the first built of iron, to cross the Atlantic—this was in 1845 —and the Science^ Museum, a representative of the "Observer" was told, will show a contemporary model. A miniature Great Eastern is there also —that' "premature leviathan" (18,914 tons) with both paddle-wheel and screw, and room for 4000 passengers. She was never a commercial success.

The Servia (1881) was the earliest steel-built merchant steamer, and the Philadelphia (1888) both the first twinscrew vessel to make the crossing and the first to do it in under six days. The Virginian (1904) was propelled by Parson's steam turbines. These great ships are in the miniature fleet at Kensington, with others of more recent fame, the Mauretania, Olympic, Majestic, Bremen, Empress of Britain, Conte di Savoia, and, finally, the Norimandie, present holder of the Blue Riband—the trophy itself is on view— and the Queen Mary, latest and most luxurious of all. A 22ft model of her I serves as centre-piece.