The Royal Military College of Sandhurst.-By an Old Cadet Considerations on Incorporating and Organizing British Naval and My Old Messmates. No. III. By Jonathan Oldjunk, Esq., R.N. "The Glorious First of June." From the Log of an Officer of the Sir Edward Belcher, R.N., C.B., his Circumnavigation in the Sulphur surveying-ship, including Details of Naval Operations Estimates for the Year 1843-1844,-Navy and Army Horse Guards, War-Office, and Admiralty Circulars, General Orders, &c. - 469, 470 629 631 THE UNITED SERVICE MAGAZINE. NAVAL IMPROVEMENTS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.. THIRD NOTICE. STEAM NAVIGATION. Soon shall thy arm, unconquered STEAM, afar WHEN Darwin hazarded these bold predictions, it was little foreseen that ere half a century had elapsed, not only barges and cars would be running by "simmering cauldrons," but that mighty ships would be wafted over the ocean; and even the latter problem, the "flying chariots," has been pronounced feasible by the investigations of Sir George Cayley; and it is actually now under an ardent schemer's consideration. Indeed, having already witnessed the amelioration of the habits and intelligence of men, by the free intercourse with the agents of commercial and social improvement which Steam Navigation has supplied, we ourselves marvel at nothing, but to each intellectual exertion emphatically cry, PERGE! We have so fully and so often expatiated on steam, and its wide application, in the pages of this Magazine, that for the general details of its rise and progress, we have only to recommend our readers to try back, while we give a resumé of its actual state and prospects at the opening of the year of our Lord, 1843. We have shown that this naval prime-mover rows and pumps, weaves and spins, lifts and carries, mines and prints-in a word, in all that stimulates commerce, enlarges production, and improves manufactures, that it is, terrestrially speaking, omnipotent. At present the use of this power adds incredibly to. our population; in one department alone, as a worthy naturalized foreigner assured us, it is doing the work of more than millions of spinsters, (spinners.) The paddles and railways have already made an abridgment of space and time, which must have a large effect on the whole habits of our social being; and the alliance of steam with the press, the factory, the ship, and the road, is a wonderful triumph of science. But grand as this progress has been, by a parity of reasoning it is still capable of great extension and improvement; for no art was ever carried to its ne plus ultra of perfection in the beginning. As a proof of the power of machinery in Great Britain, Mr. W. Pare, at a U. S. MAG., No. 170, JAN., 1843. B public meeting lately held at Birmingham, stated, in proof of the increase of the powers of production, by the improvement of machinery, that in 1792, the machinery in existence was equal to the labour of 10,000,000 of labourers; in 1827, to 200,000,000; and in 1833, to 400,000,000. In the cotton trade, spindles that used to revolve 50 times in a minute, now revolve in some cases 8000 times in a minute. At one mill at Manchester, there are 136,000 spindles at work, spinning 1,200,000 miles of cotton thread per week. Mr. Owen, at New Lanark, with 2500 people, daily produces as much cotton yarn as will go round the earth twice and a half. Early in the present century, strenuous efforts were made by spirited individuals, to introduce steam into general navigation, and the effect upon shipping was so rapid, that in the following tabulated view, we can hardly believe we are only looking at decennial periods :— .1814. 1824. 1834. Place. Vessels. Tonnage. Vessels. Tonnage. Vessels. Tonnage. The adoption of steam-vessels in every direction upon the ocean, as well as on the rivers and lakes of every civilized country, has produced, and is daily producing, results to the great human family, which it is impossible yet to estimate. England and the United States of America, i.e., Parent and Offspring, have kept far ahead of all other countries, in the energy with which they have availed themselves of this advantage, and thrown new and wonderful facilities into international commerce and intercourse. "From the earliest times," says a modern writer, "mankind have been baffled by the uncertain elements of the winds and waves: by these a barrier was raised to the progress of navigation, which the boasted improvements of modern times were never able to overcome; and the proverbial uncertainty of a sea-voyage, continued accordingly to be ranked among the irremediable evils of life. Hence it was, that when a voyage of a few miles might be protracted to several days, those great rivers and inlets of the sea, which penetrate far into the land, instead of being of unrivalled utility to commerce, formed rather a drawback, in many cases, to our internal communications, for with respect to rivers, no attempt could be made, with the least advantage, to navigate them against the stream. We possessed no power that could accomplish this object. The use of a river, as an instrument of internal intercourse, was, in consequence, much limited." Now, however, navigation need no longer be impeded by the uncertain action of the wind, or the opposing effort of the tide; since the new power is perfectly manageable, and acts in both directions, almost with equal efficacy. By means of this ubiquitous locomotive, all our means of communication, whether by sea, by river, or canal, have been multiplied to an almost indefinite extent. At present there are upwards of 1000 steam-vessels of all sizes in the United Kingdom, and there are between 80 and 100 built annually: the actual number, however, is difficult to arrive at, because there are many which were never registered. But there is an official return, sufficiently near our date to illustrate its epoch. In the report of the Commissioners appointed by the Privy Council, in 1839, to inquire into the subject of steam-vessel accidents, we find information not comprised in any other public statement. In the course of their investigation of the subject, the Commissioners obtained detailed intelligence of 83 unregistered steam-vessels, nearly all of which were used to convey passengers. Of these vessels, some plied on the Mersey, on the Humber, on the Thames, and on the rivers of the east of Scotland; and the Commissioners observe that there are, no doubt, many others unregistered, at ports which they did not visit. The great number of such vessels may be conceived, from the statement of the Report, that while there were only 25 registered steamers in the Humber, Ouse, and Trent, there were 26 unregistered; and that at Liverpool there were 39 registered, and 37 unregistered. It is also difficult to ascertain to what place many vessels properly belong. "Two Liverpool companies alone," says the Report, "possess more vessels than the total number registered there. Of the large number of trading steamers between Ireland and Liverpool, some of which are registered in English, and some in Irish ports, we (the Commissioners) were informed that nineteen-twentieths are owned in Ireland." It further states, that of the 766 steam-vessels which they ascertained then to belong to Great Britain, Ireland, Guernsey, Jersey, and Man, 484 may be considered as river steamers and small coasters; and 282 as large coasters and sea-going ships. The annexed table, constructed from the Custom House returns, will show the approximate number, tonnage, and power of vessels belonging to the mercantile steam marine of the United Kingdom and its dependencies, at the end of the year 1838: Here is abundant food for reflection, and a striking type of the times we live in. Our preceding decennial table, exhibited the extraordinary increase of vessels to 50,735 tons in 1834; and here we find that the tonnage more than tripled in the following four years! And both these returns are independent of the mail-packets, government craft, and steam men-of-war. But though the period of this advance was small, the progress was regulated with caution. Steamers were first brought into use in this country on the Clyde, and they were soon afterwards plying about England, Scotland, and Ireland, to the rapid increase of beneficial intercourse of the capital with all parts of the empire. The next step was to steam it across the British Channel, then to the coasts of Spain and Portugal, and soon afterwards to the Mediterranean and Baltic seas. At each advance, experience prompted improvement, and, emboldened by constant success, steam now looked to America and India; and might have assumed Vires acquirit eundo, as her motto. Still the doctors differed as to the limits of this extension of steam navigation. Dionysius Lardner, a very triton among minnows, took the field with the magnanimous resolution either to burke the Great Western project, or so smite, as to cripple it. With this luminous fancy in view, he not only wielded the goosequill, but also sported his person in Bristol, where he held forth that, to attempt a voyage across the Atlantic by steam, was "as vain as would be one to the moon." Such was the dictum; but the Bristolians, who are no fools on a march, marvelled that such a question could be raised, knowing well that our steamers had not only navigated the Mediterranean and the Baltic, but that the Atlantic had already been crossed, and India visited by way of the Cape. They therefore flew in the face of the schoolman's temerarious prediction, and fitted out the Great Western. As all the world knows the gratifying result, it is needless to say more than that she performed the voyage with such celerity, safety, and punctuality, as floored all opposition. Since then, her arrivals and departures are as decidedly fixed as those of a mail-coach; and it was only a few short months after the learned Doctor's diatribe against the practicability of making the trip, that we saw, in the very same room where the spouting took place, this placard : The Great Western, Lieutenant Hosken, R.N., Commander, is intended to sail FROM BRISTOL, 4th June, 25th July, 12th September, 7th November. FROM NEW YORK, 9th May, 1st July, 18th August, 10th October, 8th December. The first voyage of the Great Western was one of the highest steam interest, on account of certain misgivings occasioned by the doubting of the Gothamites. It is true, that the Atlantic Ocean had been crossed in 1819 by the Savannah, in 1828 by the Curaçoa, and that the Sirius had started, in 1838, for that purpose; but it was considered, by the loudest arguficators, that the dependence of those vessels upon steampower was incomplete. The voyage of the Great Western practically settled the problem of steaming over the Herring Pond, and is therefore considered as having founded a permanent mode of transportation between two noble countries. Dr. Lardner, indeed, in his work on the steam-engine, 1836, had pronounced the projected intercourse between |