AN ATTEMPT TO RULE THE WAVES.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 84, 20 November 1872, Page 3

AN ATTEMPT TO RULE THE WAVES.

Now Zealand colonists are so throroughly innured to submission, when it is necessary to make a sea Tojuge of Inilf-u-dozon hours to as many days, that they hardly appreciate tho importance attached by the travelling people of England to the miseries of an hour and a-halt' in the Straits of Dover. But as, so far as we can see, it may prove impossible to run pnssengor steamers off the coast by railways during the current generation, it may be of interest here to watch the progress of improvements that tend to mako resignation less necessary to sea travellers. The telegrams have stated that Mr. Bessemer is contriving a steamer, with a cabin suspended so as to be all but motionless despite tho rolling and pitching of the hull. An article in tho Times, of September 1, promises that iv niuo or ten mouths from that date, two large vessels will be iv action, by which the contrivance will bo tested. They are to be 350 feet long, propelled by engines of 5,000 horse power, and capable of going without difficulty at twenty miles au hour. The suspended cabin will be 11'ty feet long, by thirty feet broad, and twenty feet high—about two-thirds tho size of our Provincial Hull. There will be an outer promenade seventy feet by eighteen feot on tho top. It has often been proposed to suspend tablos, chairs, or cabins at sea on gimbles, like a ship's compass, weighting tho machine so as to maintain tho level of tlie iloor or tablo. ATr. Begsenmr'a first idea "was to carry out this plan, and ho designed a circular cabin to bo hung in tho contra of tlie aliip, where tho rtso and full is least. To make space for this ho arranged to place tho machinery forward and aft. After spending some time on the design, he concluded however that as the point of suspension would not j bo stationary, there would always be a slight pendu- i hun motion in his cabin, and that there would moreover be iucouveiiience from tho occasional movement of a largo body of people to one side as some object of interest might attract their eyes when freed from slavory to the waves. Ho resolved accordingly to apply some activo power to meet the changing nooessity of the cus,e, and his own experience as a manufacturer at onfe suggested tho application of hydraulic power governed by hand. In his own works Mr. Bessemer hus hydraulic apparatus by which a converting.pot containing five tons of molten stoel —the whole vessel and contents weighing sixteen tons —is handled and poured us promptly and as exactly as a lady pours out a cup of tea, a lud directing tho movements from a distance of fifty feet. A large working model of tho proposed steamers has been inudo and the apparatus proved by mechanical imitation of the rolling motion of a ship. The experiment is said to bo quite satisfactory, but the details of the mechunisin are not given. The reader is led to suppose that tho whole will bo controlled by a man furnished with gauges, and opening or closing valves to apply the power so as to meet the motions of tho vessel and passengers. Such a plan would not bo applicable to any but large ships ; the rapidity of motion would bo a serious obstacle, for instance, on the ordinary passenger vessels of New Zeuluud.