One zinc-etching ill.u.s.tration reproducing an old wood-cut of the ship, with the caption, "The Savannah, First Steamship That Crossed the Ocean."
CENTENNIAL OF THE FIRST STEAMSHIP TO CROSS THE ATLANTIC
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One hundred years ago this week there was launched at New York the ship Savannah, which may be called the father of the scores of steamers that are now carrying our soldiers and supplies from the New World to the Old World.
The Savannah was the first ship equipped with steam power to cross the Atlantic ocean. It made the trip in 25 days, using both sails and engine, and the arrival of the strange craft at Liverpool was the cause of unusual stir among our English cousins. Like every step from the beaten path the idea of steam travel between the New World and the Old World was looked upon with much scepticism and it was not until about 20 years later that regular, or nearly regular, steamer service was established.
The launching of the Savannah took place on Aug. 22, 1818. It was not accompanied by the ceremony that is accorded many of the boats upon similar occasions to-day. As a matter of fact, it is probable that only a few persons knew that the craft was intended for a transatlantic trip.
The keel of the boat was laid with the idea of building a sailing ship, and the craft was practically completed before Capt. Moses Rogers, the originator of the venture, induced Scarborough & Isaacs, ship merchants of Savannah, to buy her and fit her with a steam engine for service between Savannah and Liverpool.
The ship, which was built by Francis Fickett, was 100 feet long, 28 feet broad and 14 feet deep. It had three masts which, of course, were of far greater importance in making progress toward its destination than was the steam engine.
Capt. Rogers had gained a reputation for great courage and skill in sailing. He had already had the honor of navigating the sea with a steamer, taking the New Jersey from New York to the Chesapeake in 1816, a voyage which was then thought to be one of great danger for such a vessel.
It was natural, then, that he was especially ambitious to go down in history as the first master of a steam ship to cross the ocean. As soon as the vessel had been purchased by the Savannah ship merchants, the work of installing the engine was begun. This was built by Stephen Vail of Speedwell, N.J., and the boiler by David Dod of Elizabeth, N. J.
The paddle-wheels were made of iron and were "detachable," so that the sections could be removed and laid on the deck. This was done when it was desired to proceed under canvas exclusively and was also a precaution in rough weather.
In short, the Savannah was an auxiliary steamer, a combination of steam and sail that later became well known in shipping. This is much like the early development of the gasoline marine engine, which was an auxiliary to the sail, a combination that is still used.
Capt. Rogers took the boat from New York to Savannah in eight days and 15 hours, using steam on this trip for 41 hours. On May 26, 1819, under Capt. Rogers, the Savannah set sail from her home port for Liverpool and made the trip in 25 days.
As long as the trip took, the voyage was considerably shorter than the average for the sailing ship in 1819, and this reduction in time was accomplished in spite of the fact that the Savannah ran into much unfavorable weather. Capt. Rogers used steam on 18 of the 25 days and doubtless would have resorted to engine power more of the time except for the fact that at one stage of the voyage the fuel was exhausted.
It was natural that the arrival of the steamer in English waters should not have been looked upon with any great favor by the Englishmen. In addition to the jeers of the sceptical, the presence of vessels was accompanied by suspicion on the part of the naval authorities, and the merchants were not favorably impressed.
When the Savannah approached the English coast with her single stack giving forth volumes of dense black smoke, it was thought by those on sh.o.r.e that she was a ship on fire, and British men-of-war and revenue cutters set out to aid her. When the truth was known, consternation reigned among the English officers. They were astonished at the way the craft steamed away from them after they had rushed to a.s.sist what they thought was a ship in distress.
The reception of the Savannah at Liverpool was not particularly cordial.
Some of the newspapers even suggested that "this steam operation may, in some manner, be connected with the ambitious views of the United States."
A close watch was kept on the boat while she lay in British waters, and her departure was welcome. In the second volume of "Memoranda of a Residence at the Court of St. James," Richard Rush, then American Minister in London, includes a complete log of the Savannah. Dispatch No. 76 from Minister Rush reports the arrival of the ship and the comment that was caused by its presence as follows:
London, July 3,1819.
Sir--On the 20th of last month arrived at Liverpool from the United States the steamship Savannah, Capt. Rogers, being the first vessel of that description that ever crossed the sea, and having excited equal admiration and astonishment as she entered port under the power of her steam.
She is a fine ship of 320 tons burden and exhibits in her construction, no less than she has done in her navigation across the Atlantic, a signal trophy of American enterprise and skill upon the ocean.
I learn from Capt. Rogers, who has come to London and been with me, that she worked with great ease and safety on the voyage, and used her steam full 18 days.
Her engine acts horizontally and is equal to a 72 horsepower. Her wheels, which are of iron, are on the sides, and removable at pleasure. The fuel laid in was 1500 bushels of coal, which got exhausted on her entrance into the Irish Channel.
The captain a.s.sures me that the weather in general was extremely unfavorable, or he would have made a much shorter pa.s.sage; besides that, he was five days delayed in the channel for want of coal. I have the honor to be, etc., RICHARD RUSH.
To have made the first voyage across the Atlantic Ocean under steam was a great accomplishment and brought no little credit to Capt. Rogers and the United States. Pioneers in many ventures, the American people had added another honor to their record. And this was even more of a credit because in those early days skilled workmen were comparatively few on these sh.o.r.es and the machine shops had not reached a stage of efficiency that came a short time later.
There were, of course, in 1819 men who had developed into mechanics and there were shops of some account, as the steamboat for short trips had been in existence for some years. But the whole enterprise of planning a steam voyage in which the boat should be headed due east was characteristic of the boldness and bravery of the Americans.
The Savannah did not return to the States directly from England. It steamed from Liverpool to St. Petersburg and brought forth further comment from the Old World. She proved that the marine steam engine and side-wheels were practicable for deep-sea navigation. The idea of transatlantic travel under steam had been born and it was only necessary to develop the idea to "shorten the distance" between the two continents.
This pioneer voyage, however, was then looked upon more as a novelty than as the inception of a new method of long-distance travel. The trip had failed to demonstrate that steam was an entirely adequate subst.i.tute for the mast and sail in regular service.
Since the Savannah was primarily a sailing vessel, the loss of steam power by the crippling of the engine would not be serious, as she could continue on her way with paddle-wheels removed and under full sail.
It was 19 years later that the idea of employing vessels propelled by steam in trade between the United States and England came under the serious consideration of merchants and ship builders. In the interval the marine boiler and the engines had been improved until they had pa.s.sed the stage of experiment, and coasting voyages had become common on both sides of the Atlantic.
The beginning of real transatlantic steam voyages was made by the Sirius and the Great Western. The latter boat had been built especially for trips across the ocean and the former was taken from the Cork and London line. The Sirius started from Liverpool on April 4, 1838, and the Great Western four days later. They arrived in New York within 24 hours of each other, the Sirius at 10 p.m. on April 22 and the Great Western at 3 o"clock the following afternoon. Neither of the vessels carried much sail.
These boats gave more or less irregular service until withdrawn because of their failure to pay expenses. In 1839 the Cunard Company was formed and the paddle steamers Britannia, Arcadia, Columbia, and Caledonia were put into service.
From that time on the steamer developed with great rapidity, the value of which was never more demonstrated than at the present time. It will always be remembered, however, that this Capt. Rogers with his crude little Savannah was the man whose bold enterprise gave birth to the idea of transatlantic travel under steam.
(A syndicate Sunday magazine section of the _Harrisburg Patriot_)
SEARCHING FOR THE LOST ATLANTIS
By GROSVENOR A. PARKER
Not so long ago a stubby tramp steamer nosed its way down the English Channel and out into the Atlantic. Her rusty black bow st.u.r.dily shouldered the seas aside or shoved through them with an insistence that brought an angry hail of spray on deck. The tramp cared little for this protest of the sea or for the threats of more hostile resistance.
Through the rainbow kicked up by her forefoot there glimmered and beckoned a mirage of wealthy cities sunk fathoms deep and tenanted only by strange sea creatures. For the tramp and her crew there was a stranger goal than was ever sought by an argosy of legend. The lost cities of Atlantis and all the wealth that they contain was the port awaiting the searchers under the rim of the western ocean.
It"s no wild-goose chase that had started thus unromantically. The men who hope to gain fame and fortune by this search are sure of their ground and they have all the most modern mechanical and electrical aids for their quest. On the decks of their ship two submarine boats are cradled in heavy timbers. One of them is of the usual type, but the other looks like a strange fantasy of another Jules Verne. A great electric eye peers cyclops-wise over the bow and reaching ahead of the blunt nose are huge crab-like claws delicate enough to pick up a gold piece and strong enough to tear a wall apart.
These under-water craft are only a part of the equipment that Bernard Meeker, a young Englishman, has provided to help him in his search for the lost city. There are divers" uniforms specially strengthened to resist the great pressure under which the men must work. Huge electric lamps like searchlights to be lowered into the ocean depths and give light to the workers are stacked close beside powerful generators in the ship"s hold. In the chart room there are rolls of strange maps plotting out the ocean floor, and on a shelf by itself rests the tangible evidence that this search means gold. It is a little bowl of strange design which was brought up by a diver from the bottom of the Caribbean.
When this bowl first came to light it was supposed to be part of loot from a sunken Spanish galleon, but antiquarians could find nothing in the art of the Orient, or Africa, or of Peru and Mexico to bear out this theory. Even the gold of which it was made was an alloy of a different type from anything on record.
It was this that gave Meeker his first idea that there was a city under the sea. He found out the exact spot from which the divers had recovered the bowl, and compared the reckonings with all the ancient charts which spoke of the location of fabled Atlantis. In one old book he located the lost city as being close to the spot where the divers had been, and with this as a foundation for his theories he asked other questions of the men who had explored that hidden country. Their tale only confirmed his belief.
"The floor of the sea is covered with unusual coral formation," one of them told him, "but it was the queerest coral I ever saw. It looked more like stone walls and there was a pointed sort of arch which was different from any coral arch I had ever seen."
That was enough to take Meeker to the Caribbean to see for himself. He won"t tell what he found, beyond the fact that he satisfied himself that the "coral" was really stone walls pierced by arched doors and windows.
Meeker kept all his plans secret and might have sailed away on his treasure hunt without making any stir if he had not been careless enough to name one of his submarines "Atlantis." He had given out that he was sailing for Yucatan to search for evidence of prehistoric civilization.
It is true that the sh.o.r.es of Yucatan are covered with the remnants of great cities but the word "Atlantis" awoke suspicion. Questions followed and Meeker had to admit the bare facts of his secret.
"Only half a dozen men know the supposed location of Atlantis," he said, just before sailing, "and we don"t intend to let any others into the secret. Those who have furnished the money for the expedition have done so in the hope of solving the mystery of the lost continent, and without thought for the profit. The divers and the other men of the crew have the wildest dreams of finding h.o.a.rded wealth. It is not at all impossible that their dreams will come true, and that they will be richly rewarded. At any rate they deserve it, for the work will be dangerous.
"Our plans are simple enough. With the submarine of the usual type we will first explore that part of the sea bottom which our charts cover.
This vessel has in its conning tower a powerful searchlight which will reveal at least the upper portions of any buildings that may be there.
For work in greater depths we will have to depend on the "Atlantis" with its special equipment of ballast tanks and its hatch-ways for the divers.
"You see, we do not plan to lower the divers from the steamer or from a raft. Instead they will step directly out on the sea floor from a door in the submarine which opens out of an air chamber. In this the diver can be closed and the air pressure increased until it is high enough to keep out the water. All that he has to do then is to open the door and step out, trailing behind him a much shorter air hose and life line than would hamper him if he worked from the surface. The air hose is armored with steel links so that there will be no danger of an inquisitive shark chopping it in two."
Previous to the diver"s exploration the claws of the "Atlantis" will search out the more promising places in the ruins. These claws work on a joint operated electrically, and on the tip of each is a sensitive electrical apparatus which sets off a signal in the conning tower of the submarine. Crawling over the bottom like a strange monster, the claws will also help to avoid collisions with walls when the depths of the water veils the power of the searchlight.