THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1907. A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, AND NOW!

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13501, 27 July 1907, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1907. A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, AND NOW!

In these days of Lusitanias and Dreadnoughts it is interesting to turn back a hundred leaves or so in the great Book of Time and trace these things from their beginnings. Though it is actually more than a hundred years since steam was first successfully employed as a motive power for ships—for Win. Sy minington built the Charlotte Dundas steam tug for use on the Firth of Clyde Canal as long ago as 1802—next month is the centenary of the launch, in America, on the waters of the Hudson, of the first steamboat -that could be called a commercial success. In August, 1807, Robert Fulton built and fitted there a steamboat called the Clermont, utilising in its construction some hints he had got from Symmington, and getting his engines from the firm of Boulton and Watt, as there was no shop in America then capable of making them. " With splash and creak and groan," says a recent writer, "she worked her way up the smooth waters of. the Hudson at less than five miles an hour, sighing along under a pressure of seven pounds of steam, her owners happy in having a score of passengers and a hundred tons of freight to carry.". Many onlookers derided, others predicted calamity, 5 but wise men saw in the vessel, crude as it was, the birth of a new giant force. Steam had come to stay. A description of this pioneer boat cannot but raise a smile. She was 140 ft long by 16ft wide and 7ft deep. Her boiler, made of copper plates, was so poorly constructed that it kept leaking, and the leaks as they developed were stopped with molten lead. The fire-box was qf masonry. The boiler and engine and paddle-wheels were all exposed to the weather—quite uncovered. What a world of thoughtful interest would be awakened could we but put this baby of a hundred tons alongside one of the great Cunarders just launched, and compare fcneir 785ft-of length with her 140 ft, their beam of 88ft with hers of 16ft, their 66ft of depth with her 7ffc, her halfdeck with their eight decks, connected by electric lifts, her 20 horseI power engine with their 80,000, her four and a-half knots in smooth river water with' their 25 at sea! But only the unscientific would jeer; the wiser would take off their hats to the genius of Fulton, recognising in that cockle-shell of his the germ of the leviathan alongside her. Though 1 modified in various details, and ; steadily improved upon, that pant- ! ing, wheezy Clermont remained, in all its essential principles, the model for a generation, indeed up to our own times. The first British builder to follow in Syrnmingtqn's wake was Robert Bell, who five years after Fulton built the Comet, which plied regularly for passengers on the Clyde in 1812. Fulton found his invention a money-making one, and in 1814 he was commissioned by the United States Government to build a/ steam war vessel—the first of its kind. The, interest awakened in the new motive force thus successfully harnessed, and made, however imperfectly, to do man's bidding, was widespread. By-and-by, people began to discuss the question, Would it be possible to construct a steamship to cross the Atlantic? Practical men said " Yes." "No!" said leading scientists. As early as 1819 an American ship, the Savannah, had crossed from Savannah to Liverpool in 25 days, 18 of which she was under steam. But she was not a commercial success, and another nineteen years passed before any vessel made the whole passage under steam. Scientists said it could not be done. Dr. Dionysius Lardner, one of the foremost of them, committed himself to the statement, founded as he believed on incontrovertible data: "We have as an extreme limit of a steamer's practicable voyage without a relay of coal a run of about 2000 miles." The statement was, however, speedily falsified by facts. In 1838 the Sinus crossed from London to New York under steam in sixteen days, and proved, theorists notwithstanding, that it could be done. The Great Western and the British Queen speedily followed the Sinus. 'They were all paddlesteamers, increased speed being obtained by increasing the size of the cylinder, until at last vessels were so full of machinery that profitable trade became almost impossible. But the introduction of screw,' pro-

pulsion, diminishing the consumptio* of coa] by ■■ about one-half, put a new complexion on the business. Though the invention was first brought into notice in England, the conservatism of John Bull proved at the f,into insurmountable, and it was American energy and enterprise that first embraced the opportunity the new invention opened out. England waited till the experiment was a proved success, and her first screw oceangoing steamer was the Great Britain, in 1843. The famous Great Eastern, designed by Brunei in 1852, was partly propelled by paddlewheels and partly by screw. Had it been possible to fit her with more powerful machinery, how very dif ferenfc her fate might have been ! ToV, us the idea of equipping a vessel GSOft long, 83 ft beam, and 25ft draught, with screw-engines of only •1000 indicated h.p., 1600 nominal, and paddle-engines of only 2600 in-, dicated h.p., and 1000 nominal, seems, little short of absurd. But, unfortunately for Brunei's masterpiece, it was the. most that could be done at the time, ami it sealed her fate. '.' The next great advance in machinery was the introduction of the dou- - ble cylinder, and the superseding of simple engines by compound, aoout 187-2. This rendered practicable the employment of larger vessel, and in 1881 the Liverpool shipowners astonished the world with the Alaska, fitted with double expansion engines, and doing the journey to New York in six days! The name "Ocean Greyhound," wag first applied to her? But the record she established did not last long. Triple and quadruple expansion followed naturally on double, and vessels kept; increasing in size and speed until they attained the dimensions of the North German Lloyd steamer Kaiser Wilhelm 11., which, with engines of 40,000 h.p., crossed the Atlantic in five days, at a speed of 2oi knots. Further than this it seemed impracticable to go in shipbuilding. The trade to be done, would not warrant the excessive expenditure necessary to depose the Kaiser Wilhelm from its supremacy. But the Hon. C. A. Parsons came opportunely to the rescue of British shipowners, and . the invention of the turbine proved the most important departure known in the history of harnessed steam. - The abandonment of the piston and the placing of what has' been termed "a modified windmill" within the cylinder, the steam being driven against its vanes, which increase it size and exposed surface as the steam cools, effected a great economy of space in the engine-room, increased speed, and proved much cheaper at all speeds over Id knots. The tur- - bine it was that rendered possible the two enormous 40,000 ton boats of" the Cunard line recently launched. With the introduction of the new principle of complusion, many think we have reached the limit of development in the use of steam. -The discovery of a new Way of utilising the energy stored up in fuel, by extracting the gas and using it explosively to drive the piston of an engine, may speedily again revolutionise shipbuilding. At present it is claimed that the best producer-gas-enginesj; as the Americans term the new machines, enable three and ; even four times as much work to be got out of coal as a steam engine does. The principle is only yet in its infancy, We shall probably hear of producer-gas-turbines ere long. Indeed, Mr. Maxim lias already suggested the ;.'-.. building of warships thus equipped, and without funnels. But as a writer in a recent Munsey, to which we are greatly indebted, remarks " Even a battery of producer-gas turbines is by no means the limit on which the eyes of inventors arc fixed. They are dreaming of a time j when, instead of burning fuel in a furnace to produce either heat or gas, they will treat it in a retort in a way that will develop its latent energy in the form of electricity, with by-products that will more than make up for all waste." A dream only, as yet, but what a splendid one! Looking back on past triumphs, contrasting tiny begin- • nings with the gigantic achievements our eyes behold, who dares say the realisation of the dream is impracticable 1