The directors might, therefore, have seen that extreme caution was necessary for all mercantile steamship undertakings requiring the maintenance of so high a rate of steaming speed as they contemplated. Indeed, taking the actual results of the most successful steam-vessels of that day, it was more reasonable to doubt the realization of the hopes entertained by the projectors.[419]
The Great Eastern commenced, May 1, 1854.
Nevertheless, the sanguine expectations of the directors were in no way shaken and, under the advice and personal superintendence of Mr. I. K. Brunel, Mr. Scott Russell commenced the arduous undertaking in his yard at Millwall on the north side of the Thames.[420]
Details of her dimensions.
To prepare the ground for the reception of the enormous weight about to be placed upon it, 1500 huge piles of timber were driven through the loose surface soil into the more solid stratum below. These were girded so as to form a platform bound together by transverse and longitudinal balks of timber, between which thick beds of concrete were embedded, and, on this structure, iron rails were laid to form the launching ways, of which the following is the longitudinal section.
On this platform the first plates of the great ship, built entirely of iron, were placed, May 1st, 1854.
And mode of construction.
The hull of the Great Eastern,[421] which is of immense strength, is divided transversely into ten separate compartments of 60 feet each, and rendered perfectly water-tight, in all its parts, by bulkheads through which there is no opening, whatever, below the second deck: two longitudinal walls of iron, 36 feet apart traverse 350 feet of the length of the ship. Instead of the usual keel there is a flat plate of iron in its place, about 2 feet wide and 1 inch thick, running the entire length of the vessel from stem to stern, and so set up as virtually to form part of the base on which all the rest of the fabric is raised, whether of plates or girders. The bottom and sides which ascend immediately from this keel plate are also 1 inch tapering to three-quarters of an inch thick, the entire structure having been raised from below by adding plate to plate upwards. These plates are fastened together by more than 3,000,000 rivets, each an inch in diameter, the whole being hammered in when at almost a white heat, and welded so close as to form parts of the plates which they bind together.
