CHAPTER V.

BEFORE THE FURNACE.

“Therecord’s broken again, Jemmy! The White Star has come home a couple of hours earlier!”

“She has, has she? Well, it will be the Cunard’s turn next week. It’s wonderful what they get out of the Cunard’s engines.”

“They do; but I’m thinking the American’sNew Yorkwill be doin’ the fastest bit.”

“Well, well, it may be. They’re all main powerful vessels. Do you mind when the Guion’sAlaskacame home in 6 days, 18 hours, 37 minutes?”

“I do, and about ten years later, I suppose, some ships were doing it in about a day less time!”

“Ay, ay, and I see they’re goin’ ahead down south too.”

“Yes, there’s fast steaming all over the world, Jemmy!”

“I told you what would happen when the compound engine came into use. I said, ‘Mark my words, now they’ve got the compound engine, they will go ahead’—and they have.”

Jemmy’s prediction has been amply verified, for almost every year since the compound engine came largely into use, has witnessed a greater speed in ocean steamers.

And the speed has not been obtained at sacrifice of comfort. On the contrary, an ocean passenger steamer belonging to any of the great passenger lines is something like a floating palace.

After theBritannicandGermanicappeared, line after line put forth fine vessels; and in 1889 was launched the White Star steamerTeutonic, which for some time held the proud position of the fastest ship on the Atlantic. She had crossed in 5 days, 16 hours, 31 minutes. The average of several trips, both forherself and her sisterMajestic, was 5 days, 18 hours, 6 minutes. And they were run very close by the American liners,ParisandNew York. These four vessels were among the first propelled by twin-screws. Engineers began to see that it was better to use great power in two shafts and two propellers than in one.

In July, 1892, the fine Inman (now called American) linerPariscrossed the Atlantic in 5 days, 15 hours, and 58 minutes, and in October of the same year the same vessel steamed from Liverpool, touching as usual at Queenstown, in 6 days, 2 hours, and 24 minutes—including the time at the Irish port. This was then the quickest time on record for the entire journey. From Queenstown to Sandy Hook the time was 5 days, 14 hours, and 24 minutes, a gain of 1 hour and 34 minutes on her voyage in the previous July. Her best day’s run was 530 knots.

The contest, therefore, between the two White Stars and the two Inmans has been very close, the record time resting now with the one and then with the other.

But the Cunard Company, not to be beaten, put on theCampaniain 1893, and in April of that year she made the fastest maiden trip then on record, one day indeed compassing 545 knots in the 24 hours.

TheCampaniais 625 feet long by 65¼ feet broad, and 43 feet deep from the upper deck. Her gross tonnage is 12,950. She is fitted with a cellular double bottom extending fore and aft, and also with sixteen bulkheads, so arranged that the vessel would float even if two, or in some cases three, compartments were open to the ocean.

She is a twin-screw vessel, fitted with two sets of very powerful triple-expansion engines. They are seated in two separate engine-rooms with a dividing bulkhead and water-tight doors.

Each set of engines has five inverted cylinders—viz., two high-pressure, one intermediate, and two low-pressure—all arranged to work on three cranks set atan angle of 120 degrees to each other. Her indicated horse-power is 30,000. The boiler-rooms are doubly cased, the space between being fitted with nonconducting material for sound and heat.

HIGH AND LOW PRESSURE CYLINDERS OF THE “CAMPANIA’S” ENGINES.

In this huge vessel four decks rise tier above tier, beside erections on the upper deck, known as promenade and shade decks. These four principal decks are the orlop, the lowest of all, used for cargo, stores, and machinery; the lower, the main, and the upperdecks, the last three being devoted entirely to passengers.

Imagine yourself on the upper deck. Before you stretches the long vista of its length, like some far-reaching walk ashore; a circuit of the vessel four times makes a mile. Above rises the shade deck with the navigating apparatus, and surrounded by the twenty lifeboats of the vessel; above again is the captain’s bridge, where are placed the telegraph and wheel house, while higher still is perched the crow’s nest or look-out box, on the foremast, and about 100 feet from the water-level. Give a glance, too, at the huge funnels, 120 feet high, and so large that when in the builder’s yard a coach full of passengers was driven with four horses through one of them.

Descending then, the grand staircase, which is sufficiently wide for six persons to walk down abreast, and admiring the polished panelling, the rich Japanese paper, and the lounges on the landings, we enter the superb dining-saloon 100 feet long by 62 feet broad. Four huge tables run almost along its length, with smaller tables in the corners, while the wood-carving, carpeting, gold decorated roof, costly mirrors, and upholstering in rich red velvet are of the most sumptuous description.

From this magnificent hall you can wander on through other apartments of great splendour, drawing-room, library, smoking, music room, bath-rooms, and numbers of state-rooms. There are single berth, double berth, and three and four berth cabins—the old wooden benches for beds, however, being replaced by iron bed-steads throughout the ship. The electric light glows everywhere, being distributed by some fifty miles of wire.

THE “CAMPANIA.”By permission of The Cunard Steamship Co.

THE “CAMPANIA.”

By permission of The Cunard Steamship Co.

The second-class accommodation differs but in degree from the magnificence of the saloon, while the steerage passengers are berthed on the lower deck, but have the privilege of walking on the upper deck. An additional idea of the size of the ship may be gained when we learnthat the crew consists of over 420 persons—viz., 190 engineers, 179 stewards, and 54 sailing hands, while the vessel’s full complement of passengers brings up the total number of persons aboard to 1600 souls—quite a floating town indeed.

About five years after the birth of theTeutonicthe newspapers recorded, in May, 1894, that theLucania, sister ship to theCampania, and one of the newest Cunarders, had performed the journey across the Atlantic in 5 days, 13 hours, and 28 minutes. Her average speed was 22¼ knots, or 25·7 land miles per hour, marking one of the quickest runs then ever recorded; and about the same time came the news that the P. & O. steamerHimalayahad completed a mail transit from Bombay of 12½ days, and as her voyage to Bombay had been just over 13 days—the best outward passage—she had completed a round mail transit to Bombay and back, excluding stoppages, of 25½ days.

A little later, in the same year, the torpedo-boat destroyer,Hornet, built by Messrs. Yarrow & Co., of Poplar, for the British Navy, achieved, it is said, about 27 knots; that is, roughly speaking, near to 29 or 30 miles an hour, which speed proclaimed her to be then one of the fastest steamships in the world. She was fitted with the Yarrow water-tube boilers, which are both light and strong, while the consumption of coal was said to be remarkably small. She has two sets of triple-expansion inverted engines.

Again, a short time later, Messrs. Thorneycroft, of Chiswick, obtained similar results with theDaring, another boat of the same kind built for the British Government, and fitted with the Thorneycroft improved water-tube boilers. These, it is claimed, will raise steam from cold water in fifteen minutes. She passed the measured mile on the Maplin at the high speed of 29¼ miles an hour.

In the same summer a Company put on a fine steamer for service on the Thames and the English Channel, calledLa Marguerite, which developed, itis said, a speed of 25 miles an hour, which would make her one of the fastest passenger vessels then afloat.

Another Company has also a noteworthy vessel running on the Estuary of the Thames—viz., theLondon Belle, plying from London Bridge to Clacton-on-Sea. She is a triple-expansion paddle boat, and the first river steamer fitted with three crank triple-expansion paddle engines. She was built by Denny of Dumbarton, and can develop a speed of 19½ knots—i.e., twenty-three statute miles per hour, and is worked with great economy of coal consumption.

An example of a quadruple-expansion engine steamer may be found in theTantallon Castle, one of the newest vessels for voyaging to South Africa. She is 456 feet long, over 50 broad, with a gross tonnage of 5636. She is fitted with quadruple-expansion engines of 7500 horse-power, and the stoke holes are well ventilated by large fans speeding round with great swiftness.

Improvements in steamship building had gone steadily on; and it is safe to say that a pound of coal, after the compounding principle came fully into use, did four or five times the work it accomplished before high pressure engines were fully utilised.

Let us enter the engine-room of a big liner, and see for ourselves. It is a triumph of engineering. Still, at first, you cannot understand anything of the complicated mass of machinery. Then you notice three large cylinders—for these are triple-expansion engines—with pistons shooting in and out downwards, and attached by connecting rods to the cranks of the propeller shaft below. The cranks are bent at different angles so that they can never all be in the same position at once. There is a maze of machinery and shining rods, bewildering to the uninitiated eye. But you gradually notice how absolutely regular every part is in its action, and how beautifully one part fits with another.

Then go before the furnace; you find yourself in front of a huge structure, at the bottom of which is the long fire box; above rises the heat box communicating with tubes over the furnaces, with the water circulating between. The water, indeed, is beneath the furnace, about parts of the heat box, between and above the tubes. The object is, of course, to obtain as great heating surface as possible. The tubes communicate with the funnel at their other end. Boilers are made of a “mild” steel which has, it is said, a most remarkable tenacity of 28 tons to the square inch. Consequently they are able to bear great pressure of steam.

STOKE HOLE.

Hot distilled water is admitted to the boiler from the surface condenser. This is a “box,” riddled with tubes, through which cold sea water is pumped. The waste steam, having done its work in the cylinders, is passed into this “box,” is condensed by touching the chilly tubes of sea water, and can be run off or pumped to a hot cistern, whence it is used to feed the boiler and be turned once more to steam. About 4000 tons of water an hour pass through the surface condensers of a large liner when she is at full work.

The largest steamers require over 150 men to work the furnaces and machinery, and the attention given is hard and unremitting. In some of the fast Atlantic greyhounds the strain is terribly severe, especially when the sea is beginning to run high. The rollers may be but 20 feet, yet these are quite high enough even for a splendid ocean racer to contend with and yet maintain her speed.

Now her bows are pointing sky high, and her stern is deeply submerged; now she takes a header plump into the trough of the sea, and the engines race round; the propeller is suddenly raised out of water. But blow high, or blow low, on she goes, and the engineers are always busy. The furnaces roar with ceaseless rage. For days and nights the fires are kept at glowing heat. A forced blast maintains the draught; the steam condensed back into warm water is supplied to the boilers; half-naked men work hour after hour to rake the fires, clean them, pile on the fuel, and keep the most powerful head of steam the boilers can stand.

When the furnace doors are opened tongues of flame leap forth, and the heat is enough to make a man sick. But with head turned away, the stoker stirs up the fire with his huge “slice” or fire rake, and cleans out the clinker clogging the bars.

Then on go the coals! One layer, shot in from the shovel with unerring precision and skilful experience, right at the back; then another just in frontof the first, and so on till the long furnace is filled. Bang! the furnace door clangs, and the man reels away, sick and exhausted, with tingling eyes and heaving chest. Then coal has to be brought from the bunkers to the furnaces, tons of it per day, and if the ship rolls too much for the barrows to be used, the fuel must be carried in baskets.

There is an engineer in charge of each stoke hole, and two on the platform in each engine room; as a rule, the staff are on duty in turns—four hours out of every twelve. But if the weather be bad they may have harder times.

No matter how hot the machinery becomes, the engineers must not reduce speed, except it be to prevent disaster. Oil is swabbed on in bucketfuls, so to speak, but at every thrust the polished steel may gleam dry and smoking. Then on goes the water, as if there actually was a conflagration, and meantime a mixture of oil and sulphur is dabbed on. The water flies off in steam, so hot are the bearings, so terrific the friction of the incessant speed; and at last, down comes the reluctant order, wrung out of the chief like gold from a miser—“Slow her down.”

It is done—dampers are clapped on furnaces, steam pressure dropped a little, and engines reduced to half speed; the three great cranks of the high, intermediate, and low pressure cylinders move round easily, and the tremendous noise gradually sinks to a murmur, compared with the previous rush and roar. The machinery cools. But when quite safe, on is piled the speed once more, and again the cranks fly round, and the mighty engines work their hardest to drive the mammoth ship through the surging green rollers.

So superbly are these marine engines built, and so excellently are they maintained, being continually overhauled, so as to be kept in the pink of perfection, that, as years go on, they seem to “warm to their work” and do even better than at first.

On the completion of the 200th round voyageof the celebrated “White Stars,”GermanicandBritannic, about January, 1894, they seemed steaming as regularly and as fast, or faster than ever. Thus, on the 198th outward trip of theGermanic, in September, 1893, she made the fastest westward passage, but one, she had ever accomplished. During their lives, it was said these vessels had maintained remarkable uniformity in speed, and each vessel had steamed 200 times 6200 nautical miles, that is nearly a million and a-half statute miles, with the original engines and boilers—a performance, in all probability, without parallel in the world.

Those people who care for figures may be interested in knowing that theBritannichad been 91,741 hours under steam, and 85,812 hours actually under weigh. Her engines had made 280 million revolutions, and maintained an average speed of 15 knots, or 17¼ statute miles an hour, while she had burnt 406,000 tons of coal. During their nineteen years of life the two vessels had carried 100,000 saloon, and over 260,000 steerage passengers, in safety and in comfort.

This is a record of which all concerned, builders, owners, and working staff, may well be proud. It augurs first-class, honest work, and superb engineering skill. Since the construction of these ships, however, vessels surpassing them in speed have, of course, been built, among which may be mentioned the same line’sTeutonicandMajestic.

The well-known Cunarders,UmbriaandEtruria, have also done some very fine work, indicating great excellence of construction. Thus, on her eighty-second voyage, theUmbriasteamed from Queenstown to Sandy Hook in 5 days, 22 hours; or, allowing for detention through fog, 5 days, 18½ hours, which is within three or four hours of the White Stars’ and American’s time.

The story of the British warshipCalliope, at Samoa, will also show how marvellously well ships’ engines can be built. Some difficulties had arisen between the United States and Germany as to Samoa, and severalwarships had gathered there. Some weeks of bad weather had occurred, and then, on the 15th of March, 1889, the wind began to blow with tremendous force. Down came the top masts from the warships—taken down as a precaution; steam was raised in the boilers in case anchors should not hold, and spars were made secure. But no man among the sailors expected such a hurricane as ensued.

Rain fell at midnight, and the wind increased. Huge waves rolled in from the South Pacific, and the vessels tugged madly at their anchor chains and pitched fearfully up and down, like corks. Then theEber, one of the German ships, began to drag her anchors; and theVandalia, one of the Americans, followed suit. But by their steam power they kept off a dangerous reef, and also prevented themselves from colliding with their neighbours.

Still higher and higher blew the hurricane, and the rain fell with tropic severity. Three hours after midnight the situation had become terrible. Almost every vessel was dragging her anchors, and the danger of collision was constant.

The scene of the occurrence was a small bay before Apia, the capital of Samoa. But there is a coral reef extending in front of the bay for about two miles, and in the centre of the reef an opening about a quarter of a mile wide. The ships, therefore, were shut up in a comparatively small space, from which the way of escape was this gateway through the reef. The tide rushed in with great rapidity, swamping the land a hundred feet or so above high-water mark.

As morning dawned and wore on to-day, theEbercollided with theNipsicand then with theOlga, and, finally, was dashed by the huge waves, like a toy, upon the reef, and rolled over into deep water. Only five men struggled to shore and were saved. Other sad disasters occurred; and then, shortly before noon, theVandaliaand theCalliopewere tossed perilously near together, and also toward the dangerous reef. Inendeavouring to steam away, theVandaliacollided with theCalliope, and was much damaged. Then, with splendid courage, Captain Kane determined to steam right away to sea—to remain would but risk another collision, or a wreck on the reef. Sea-room he must have at any cost!

“Lift all anchors!” was the thrilling order, and then—“Full speed ahead!” Round swung the vessel’s head to the wind, and though the powerful engines were working “all they knew” to force the ship along, the steamer stood still, as if aghast at being asked to break through these tremendous waves.

But she stood for a moment only. The superb engines began to tell; the quickly-whirling screw churned up the heavy water at the stern, and slowly the good ship made headway through the huge billows. They crashed over her stern and poured over her decks, as if in anger at her defiance. But on went the coal to her furnaces, and the thick smoke reeled off from the funnel in volumes. The strain quivered through every limb of the ship, but her captain kept her at it, and inch by inch she forced her way through the pounding seas.

“This manœuvre of the gallant British ship,” says an eye-witness, Mr. John P. Dunning, of the Associated U.S. Press, “is regarded as one of the most daring in naval annals. It was the one desperate chance offered her commander to save his vessel and the three hundred lives aboard. An accident to the machinery at this critical moment would have meant certain death to all. Every pound of steam which theCalliopecould possibly carry was crowded on, and down in the fire-rooms the men worked as they never had worked before. To clear the harbour, theCalliopehad to pass between theTrenton(an American warship) and the reef, and it required the most skilful seamanship to avoid a collision with theTrenton, on the one hand, or total destruction upon the reef, on the other. TheTrenton’sfires had gone out by that time, and she lay helpless almost in the path of theCalliope.”

PROMENADE DECK OF THE “PARIS.”

But the dreaded collision did not take place. And as theCalliopepassed near to theTrenton, a great shout was given for the British vessel, and the Englishmen responded with a noble cheer. Captain Kane, who subsequently was appointed to theInflexible, said afterwards:

“Those ringing cheers of the American flag-ship pierced deep into my heart, and I shall ever remember that mighty outburst of fellow-feeling which, I felt, came from the bottom of the hearts of the gallant Admiral and his men. Every man on board theCalliopefelt as I did; it made us work to win. I can only say, ‘God bless America and her noble sailors!’”

TheCalliopedid win. Her superb machinery andthe fine seamanship with which she was handled were successful, and she returned to the harbour when the storm had subsided. Happily the brave men of theTrentonalso survived, though fourteen vessels were wrecked and nearly 150 lives were lost.

Strongly and staunchly as are built the Government ships, many of the great liners are their equals in these respects. Indeed, several of them are now retained by the Government to be used as armed cruisers should occasion require. The fittings and accommodation on many a large liner are also luxurious in the extreme. There are library and smoking-room, superb saloons and state-rooms, drawing-rooms, music-rooms, and tea-rooms, bath-rooms, etc. In short, they are floating hotels of a most sumptuous character.

A modern steamship, with its multitude of comforts and conveniences for passengers and its complexities of machinery for fast and safe steaming, is a great triumph of engineering skill. Patience and forethought, the persevering development of sound principles, and the application of new ideas, have all contributed to this great achievement.

From theCometto theCampaniais a marvellous development within a century. And it has not been accomplished along one line, but upon many. The use of steel, of many-tubed and strong boilers, of high pressure steam, which would have frightened Henry Bell out of his senses, the forced draught and the surface condensers, the screw propeller, the direct-acting and the triple and quadruple expansion engines, have all contributed to the noble results. Steamships, with their complex, beautiful, and powerful machinery, may rank among the most wonderful things that mankind has ever made.

train going over long bridge

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