The life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Civil Engineer

by Isambard Brunel

The duties which I apprehend will devolve upon the chief engineer of our ship will be, firstly, the supreme direction and management of both the principal engines, and all the auxiliary engines and machinery worked by them in the ship; and as the construction of such a ship, and of many of its adjuncts, such as the iron masts and yards, steering apparatus, and other parts, are strictly of an engineering character, and such as in the event of repairs, particularly at sea or in foreign ports, would require a mechanical engineer rather than a shipwright, I think it must be made part of your duty, as the most competent officer, to make yourself thoroughly acquainted with the construction of the ship and all its parts, and all mechanism within it, so as to be prepared to take such share of responsibility as to the state of the structure of the ship as it may be found desirable to throw upon you as chief engineer, and at all events to be prepared to be the captain’s chief authority and responsible adviser on all matters of mechanical engineering.

The principal duty, however, will of course be the management of the engines, including the care of the paddle, screw, and other machinery immediately connected with the engines, or worked by them; and as the success of the ship as a steamboat will depend entirely upon the amount of power developed by the engines, in proportion to the fuel consumed, there is no limit to the degree of attention, of judgment, and of skill, that not only may be usefully applied, but that must be applied to ensure success.

I have no wish to alarm you as to the amount of work or responsibility that will devolve upon you; my object is rather to show you the opportunity afforded of displaying judgment, skill, and assiduous attention, and thus, as I hope, to excite your ambition, when I seek to draw your attention very strongly to the peculiarities of this case.

In ordinary steam navigation, whatever perfection has as yet been sought for or attained, the business of the engineer has been mainly to keep the engines in perfect order, and to develope the greatest amount of power possible, and, secondly, to effect as great economy as possible in the consumption of fuel; but the latter has been merely a question of economy in a pecuniary point of view, and not of necessity, and has been entirely secondary to the first condition, so much so that the most successful ships have not been by any means the most economical, on the contrary, they have been rather extravagant consumers.

In the present case, the circumstances are totally different, and it will be essential that you should change altogether your accustomed views on this subject.

This ship is built to go round the world with a defined and limited amount of fuel, which you have no power to exceed, or rather, if you exceed it, at any part of the voyage, the whole is a failure. The circumstances are therefore reversed, with this additional condition, that there is no medium or partial success. In the ordinary cases you have a limited power of engine and an excess of fuel, in which it is desirable but not essential that you should effect economy; in the present case you have a limited and defined quantity of fuel to consume, with an excess of engine power, and the art will be to obtain the largest total amount of power from this fuel, expending it progressively, and in such a manner as to reach a given point. To effect this, and obtain the best possible results, will require of course that the engines should be kept in the best possible order; but this, although a preliminary condition, is an ordinary one, requiring no peculiar duties or exercise of judgment, and must be assumed, as on all occasions, a matter of course. The peculiar duties in our case will be the continuous study in every trifling detail that can effect the result of the means of obtaining the largest amount of steam from the defined expenditure of fuel and the use of this steam, so as to obtain the largest amount of power, and the largest amount of result.

The mere study of this question must necessarily occupy some time, and for several voyages it will be a subject of experiment; but the more rapidly positive information can be obtained, the more prompt and certain will be our success. To attain success will require a degree of attention to every minute detail, which it has never yet been necessary or profitable to devote to this branch.

The continuous weighing out of coals and measure of the products of each boiler (for which means will be provided), the continual observation of the extent to which blowing-off is desirable, the continuous measure by indicator of the performance of the engines under different pressures and degrees of expansion, so that you can at all times furnish the captain with the exact performances of the two engines, and the cost of fuel required to produce given results in each; so that he may have the means of comparing your expenditure with the results he obtained in the speed of the ship, and of learning the relative beneficial effects of employing more or less the paddle or the screw in different states of weather, or different immersions of the ship, will be required; and every method of increasing the performance of each gang of stokers, and of stimulating their skill and care, and every refinement in each separate branch of the work, to effect economy of fuel, or rather, development of power with a given amount of fuel, will be necessary. We all know full well how, if every effort is continuously made and every possible care is continuously bestowed in each department, 4 or 5 per cent. can be saved or gained in many points, and at many times in the 24 hours, between the drawing of the coals from the bunkers and the development of power at the paddle board or the screw blades; and if only 1 per cent. can be thus gained in a few points, the aggregate will soon amount to 10 per cent., which with us may make the difference between success and failure. All these things will require judgment, thought and attention, rather than labour, and, above all, close watching and method, and good management of men.

Besides these more than ordinary duties during the voyage, the only peculiarity in the service will be that, with such a costly machine, the mere interest of money and fixed expenditure upon which will not be short of 200l. a day, and the perfect state of which is so essential, you will be required to give more attention to the machinery when in port than is usually required.

I trust that this strong but not exaggerated statement of what would be expected of the chief engineer, will excite your desire to undertake the duties, rather than deter you from seeking the post; and that, if the Directors should accept the offer of your services, you will enter upon the duties with confidence, though with a sense of their serious importance. In the event of your appointment, it will be a necessary condition that you should be able to commence at once the supervision of the erection of the engines. This work is already much farther advanced than I should have wished it to be before the chief engineer had taken charge of it. I attach great importance to his having that familiar knowledge of all the parts and their condition, which no study of drawings can give so well as actual inspection during erection, and I wish also that he should satisfy himself of the perfect truth of every adjustment.