THE NEW CUNARDERS.

Less than fifty years ago the Eastern Steam-navigation Company having failed to obtain the contract to carry the mails from Plymouth to India and Australia—in vessels of from twelve hundred to two thousand tons, with engines of from four to six hundred horse-power, which were never built—began to consider a new enterprise, suggested by the late Isambard K. Brunei. This was to build the largest steamer ever yet constructed, to trade with India round the Cape of Good Hope. The general commercial idea was, that this leviathan vessel was to carry leviathan cargoes at large freights and great speed, to Ceylon, where the goods and passengers would be rapidly trans-shipped to smaller swift steamers for conveyance to various destinations in India, China, and Australia. The general mechanical idea was, that in order to obtain great velocity in steamers it was only necessary to make them large—that, in fact, there need be no limit to the size of a vessel beyond what might be imposed by the tenacity of material. On what was called the tubular principle, Brunei argued—and proved to the satisfaction of numerous experts and capitalists—that it was possible to construct a vessel of six times the capacity of the largest vessel then afloat that would steam at a speed unattainable by smaller vessels, while carrying, besides cargo, all the coal she would require for the longest voyage.

Thus originated the Great Eastern, which never went to India, which ruined two or three companies in succession, which cost £120,000 to launch, which probably earned more as a show than ever she did as an ocean-carrier—except in the matter of telegraph cables—and which ignobly ended a disastrous career by being sold for £16,000, and broken up at New Ferry, on the Mersey.

We are now entering upon a new era of big ships, in which such a monster as the Great Eastern would be no longer a wonder. Two additions to the Cunard fleet, the Campania (1892) and Lucania (1893), are within a trifle as large as she, but with infinitely more powerful engines and incomparably greater speed.

We need not suppose, however, that the idea of big ocean steamers has been the monopoly of this country. So long ago as 1850 or thereabouts, Mr Randall, a famous American shipbuilder, designed, drafted, and constructed the model of a steamer for transatlantic service, 500 feet long by 58 feet beam, to measure 8000 tons. A company was formed in Philadelphia in 1860 to carry out the project; but the civil war broke out soon after, and she was never built.

The Great Eastern was launched in January 1858, and her principal dimensions were these: Length between perpendiculars, 680 feet; breadth of beam, 83 feet; length of principal saloons, 400 feet; tonnage capacity for cargo and coals, 18,000 tons; weight of ship as launched, 12,000 tons; accommodation for passengers, (1) 800, (2) 2000, (3) 1200 = 4000; total horse-power, 7650. She had both screw and paddles for propulsion, and her displacement was 32,160 tons.

By this time the Cunard Company had been eighteen years in existence. They started in 1840 with the Britannia—quickly followed by the Acadia, Columbia, and Caledonia, all more or less alike—which was a paddle-steamer of wood, 207 feet long, 34 feet broad, 22 feet deep, and of 1156 tons, with side-lever engines developing 740 indicated horse-power, which propelled the vessel at the average speed of nine knots an hour. There was accommodation for 225 tons of cargo and 115 cabin passengers—no steerage in those days—who paid thirty-four guineas to Halifax and thirty-eight guineas to Boston, for passage, including provisions and wine.

At the time of the Great Eastern the latest type of Cunarder was the Persia, and it is interesting to note the development in the interim. This vessel was 380 feet long, 45 feet broad, 31 feet deep, of 3870 tons, with engines developing 4000 indicated horse-power, propelling at the rate of thirteen and a half knots an hour. The Persia and the Scotia, sister-ships, were the last of the Atlantic side-wheelers. In 1862 the first screw-steamer was added to the Cunard fleet. This was the China, built by the Napiers of Glasgow, 326 feet long by 40½ feet broad, and 27½ feet deep, of 2600 tons, and with an average speed of about twelve knots.

Such was the type of Cunarder in the early days of the Great Eastern, whose dimensions have now been nearly reached. The Campania, however, was not built with a view to outshine that huge failure, but is the outcome of a wholly different competition. The Campania and the Lucania represent the highest development of marine architecture and engineering skill, and are the product of long years of rivalry for the possession of the 'blue ribbon' of the transatlantic race.

The Great Eastern and the Persia.

The competition is of ancient date, if we go back to the days when the American 'Collins' Company tried to run the Cunard Company off the waters; and during the half-century since the inauguration of steam service the Cunard Company have sometimes held and sometimes lost the highest place for speed. The period of steam-racing—the age of 'Atlantic greyhounds'—may be said to have begun in the year 1879, when the Cunard Gallia, the Guion Arizona, and the White Star Britannic and Germanic had all entered upon their famous careers. It is matter of history now how the Arizona—called the 'Fairfield Flyer,' because she was built by Messrs John Elder & Company, of Fairfield, Glasgow—beat the record in an eastward run of seven days twelve and a half hours, and a westward run of seven days ten and three-quarter hours. To beat the Arizona, the Cunard Company built the Servia, of 8500 tons and 10,300 horse-power; but she in turn was beaten by another Fairfield Flyer, the Alaska, under the Guion flag. The race continued year by year, as vessels of increasing size and power were entered by the competing companies. While all the lines compete in swiftness, luxury, and efficiency, the keenest rivalry is now between the Cunard and the White Star companies. And just as the Campania and Lucania were built to eclipse the renowned Teutonic and Majestic, so the owners of these boats prepared to surpass even the two Cunarders we describe.

Let us now see something of these marvels of marine architecture. They are sister-ships, both built on the Clyde by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, and both laid down almost simultaneously. They are almost identical in dimensions and appointments, and therefore we may confine our description to the Campania, which was the first of the twins to be ready for sea.

This largest vessel afloat does not mark any new departure in general type, as the Great Eastern did in differing from all types of construction then familiar. In outward appearance, the Campania, as she lies upon the water, and as seen at a sufficient distance, is just like numbers of other vessels we have all seen. Nor does her immense size at first impress the observer, because of the beautiful proportions on which she is planned. Her lines are eminently what the nautical enthusiast calls 'sweet;' and in her own class of naval art she is as perfect a specimen of architectural beauty as the finest of the grand old clippers which used to 'walk the waters as a thing of life.' The colossal size of St Peter's at Rome does not strike you as you enter, because of the exquisite proportions. And so with the Campania—you need to see an ordinary merchant-ship, or even a full-blown liner, alongside before you can realise how vast she is.

Yet she is only 60 feet shorter than the mammoth Great Eastern, and measures 620 feet in length, 65 feet 3 inches in breadth, and 43 feet in depth from the upper deck. Her tonnage is 12,000, while that of the Great Eastern was 18,000; but then her horse-power is 30,000 as against the Great Eastern's 7650!

This enormous development of engine-power is perhaps the most remarkable feature about these two new vessels. Each of them is fitted with two sets of the most powerful triple-expansion engines ever put together. A visit to the engine-room is a liberal education in the mechanical arts, and even to the eye of the uninitiated there is the predominant impression of perfect order in the bewildering arrangement of pipes, rods, cranks, levers, wheels, and cylinders. The two sets of engines are placed in two separate rooms on each side of a centre-line bulkhead fitted with water-tight doors for intercommunication. Each set has five inverted cylinders which have exactly the same stroke, and work on three cranks. Two of the cylinders are high-pressure, one is intermediate, and two are low-pressure. Besides the main engines, there are engines for reversing, for driving the centrifugal pumps for the condensers, for the electric light, for the refrigerating chambers, and for a number of other purposes—all perfect in appointment and finish. In fact, in these vast engine-rooms one is best able to realise not only the immense size and power of the vessel, but also the perfection to which human ingenuity has attained after generations of ceaseless toil—and yet it is only half a century since the Britannia began the transatlantic race.

Each of the various engines has its own steam-supplier. The main engines are fed by twelve double-ended boilers, arranged in rows of six on each side of a water-tight bulkhead. The boilers are heated by ninety-six furnaces, and each set of six boilers has a funnel with the diameter of an ordinary railway tunnel. In the construction of these boilers some eight hundred tons of steel were required, the plates weighing four tons each, with a thickness of an inch and a half. From these mighty machines will be developed a power equal to that of 30,000 horses! Compare this with the Great Eastern's 7650 horse-power, or even with the later 'greyhounds.' The greatest power developed by the two previous additions to the Cunard fleet, the Etruria and Umbria, is about 14,000 horses, which is the utmost recorded by any single-screw engines. The City of Paris has a power of 18,500, and the Teutonic a power of 18,000 by twin-screw engines. The Campania, therefore, is upwards of half as much again more powerful than the largest, swiftest, and most powerful of her predecessors.

These engines of the Campania work two long propeller-shafts, each carried through an aperture in the stern close to the centre-line, and fitted to a screw. Unlike other twin-screw vessels, the propellers and shafts are, as it were, carried within the hull, and not in separate structures. Abaft of the screws, the rudder is completely submerged, and is a great mass of steel-plating weighing about twenty-four tons.

With a straight stem, an elliptic stern, two huge funnels, and a couple of pole-masts—intended more for signalling purposes than for canvas—the Campania looks thoroughly business-like, and has none of the over-elaborated get-up of the Great Eastern, with her double system of propulsion and small forest of masts. The bulwarks are close fore and aft; and from the upper deck rise two tiers of houses, the roofs of which form the promenade deck and the shade deck. In the structure of the hull and decks enormous strength has been given, with special protection at vital parts, as the vessel is built in compliance with the Admiralty requirements for armed cruisers. Below the line of vision are four other complete tiers of beams, plated with steel sheathed in wood, on which rest upper, main, lower, and orlop decks. The last is for cargo, refrigerating-chambers, stores, &c.—all the others are devoted to the accommodation of passengers.

The Campania is fitted to carry 460 first-class passengers, 280 second-class, and 700 steerage passengers—in all, 1440, besides a crew of 400. She has cargo-space for 1600 tons, which seems a trifle in comparison with her size, but then it is to be remembered that the fuel consumption of those 96 furnaces is enormous, and requires the carrying of a very heavy cargo of coals for internal consumption.

The accommodation for passengers is probably the most perfect that has yet been provided on an ocean steamer, for here the experience of all previous developments has been utilised. The dining-room is an apartment 100 feet long and 64 feet broad, furnished in handsome dark old mahogany, to seat 430 persons. The upholstery is tastefully designed, and the fittings generally are elegant; but the peculiar feature is a splendid dome rising to a height of thirty-three feet from the floor to the upper deck, and designed to light both the dining-room and the drawing-room on the deck above it. The grand staircase which conducts to these apartments is of teak-wood; the drawing-room is in satin-wood relieved with cedar and painted frieze panels. The smoking-room on the promenade deck is as unlike a ship's cabin as can be imagined; it is, in fact, a reproduction of an old baronial hall of the Elizabethan age, with oaken furniture and carvings. The other public apartments, library, boudoir, &c., are all more remarkable for quiet taste and artistic effect than for the gorgeousness of gilded saloons affected on some lines, but the prevailing feeling is one of luxurious comfort. The staterooms for first-class passengers occupy the main, upper, and promenade decks, and they are as much like real bedrooms as the old type of 'berths' are not. Besides the single bedrooms, there are suites of rooms for families or parties, finely appointed with ornamental woods, rich carpets, and with brass bedsteads instead of the old wooden bunks. All the sleeping-rooms are as light, lofty, and well ventilated as the sleeping-rooms on the old liners were the reverse.

The Campania.

The first-class passengers are placed amidships; the second-class are placed aft; and the steerage, forward. The steerage accommodation is superior to anything yet provided in that class; while the second-class accommodation is quite up to the usual first-class, with spacious, beautifully furnished staterooms, a handsome dining-room in oak, an elegant drawing-room in satin-wood, and a cosy smoking-room. Indeed, some of the second-class apartments look as if they were intended to be utilised for first-class passengers in times of extra pressure.

These are details of interest to possible passengers and to those who have already experienced the comforts and discomforts of the Atlantic voyage. But the great interest of the ship, of course, is in her immense size and enormous power. The navigating-bridge from which the officer in charge will direct operations, is no less than sixty feet above the water-level, and from there one obtains a survey unique of its kind. The towering height, the vast expanse of deck, the huge circumference of the funnels, the forest of ventilators indicative of the hives of industry below, the great lighthouse structures which take the place of the old angle-bedded side-lights—everything beneath you speaks of power and speed, of strength and security.

The following table shows at a glance how the Campania compares with her largest predecessors in point of size and power:

Tonnage.Length
in feet.		Breadth
in feet.		Horsepower.
Great Eastern18,900682827,650
Britannic5,000455465,500
Arizona5,150450456,300
Servia8,5005155210,300
Alaska6,4005005010,500
City of Rome8,0005455211,890
Aurania7,270470578,500
Oregon7,375500547,375
America5,528432517,354
Umbria7,7005015714,320
Etruria7,8005205714,500
City of Paris10,5005606318,500
Teutonic9,86058257½18,000
Normannia——52057¼16,350
Campania
Lucania		12,9506206530,000

As to speed, the record of course has been broken. In 1850 the average passage of a Cunarder westward was thirteen days, and eastward twelve days sixteen hours; in 1890, the average was reduced to seven days fifteen hours twenty-three minutes, and seven days four hours and fifty-two minutes, respectively. The fastest individual passages down to 1891 were made by the Etruria, westwards in six days one hour and forty-seven minutes; and by the Umbria, eastwards in six days three hours and seventeen minutes. But these were beaten by the Teutonic, which reduced the homeward record to five days and twenty-one hours; and by the City of Paris, which reduced the outward passage to five days and sixteen hours. Roughly speaking, these new Cunarders are about ten times the size and forty times the power of the pioneers of the fleet, and the Campania will run every twenty minutes almost as many miles as the Britannia could laboriously make in an hour.

Is it possible that within the next fifty years we shall be able to make the voyage to New York in three days? The old Britannia took fourteen days to Boston, and it was not until 1852 that the ten days' record to New York was broken by the 'Collins' Company. If, then, in forty years we reduced the record from ten to five, who can say that the limit of speed has yet been reached?