Paddle Wheel Steamers

The next steamer to perform the feat was the "Royal William," whose performance was particularly remarkable on account of the fact that she was built in Quebec with the idea of running from that port to Halifax. Samuel Cunard, who afterwards founded the great Atlantic company, was one of her owners. Trade depression and an epidemic of cholera spoiled her chances on the trade for which she was designed and she did no better as a tug. Her owners, being forced to consider her sale and thinking that they would get a better price for her in Europe than in Canada, sent her across the Atlantic in 1833. She took 25 days to do the passage and burned 33o tons of coal. Afterwards she was sold for iio,000 and later served in the Portuguese Navy as a trans port and in the Spanish Navy as a warship until she was finally condemned in 1847.

Regular Atlantic Passages.

These early steamship pas sages across the Atlantic were more or less haphazard, but it soon became the object of the owners to provide a regular service. Pending the construction of suitable tonnage the 703-ton steamer "Sirius," which had been built for the Irish Sea service, was chartered in 1838 by the British & American Steam Navigation Company. She was considered a big steamship in her day and was one of the first steamers to be fitted with a condenser instead of using salt water in her boilers, one of the milestones of steam engineering at sea. She sailed from London to New York by way of Cork with ma passengers and although she was grossly overloaded to modern ideas she made the passage in safety. With in a few hours of her arrival in New York a very much bigger and finer steamer, the "Great Western," which had been con structed with the idea of continuing the Great Western Railway across the Atlantic, arrived after a crossing of 15 days from Bristol. She had a tonnage of 1,440 and was regarded as the finest steamship of her day.

After this several other Atlantic liners were built but all the services were irregular and maintained by a heterogeneous col lection of ships, suitable and unsuitable. It was when Samuel Cunard founded the line which still bears his name in the year 184o that a new policy in shipping produced a revolution in ship building—the construction of sister ships. He started operations with four transatlantic ships and one small feeding steamer in Canadian waters.

The sister ships "Britannia," "Acadia," "Columbia" and "Caledonia" were wooden steamers built on the Clyde, their ton nage according to the rule then in use being about 1,15o on dimensions 207 feet by 34 ft. 2 in. by 22 ft. 2 in. depth of hold

and their two-cylinder side-lever paddle engines of 740 I.H.P. being sufficient for an average speed of nine knots in favourable circumstances. The coal supply of these ships was the chief anxiety of their designers, and their passenger accommodation was not equal to the sailing packets which they rivalled, but the regularity of their passages compensated for the fact that they were frequently beaten by the sailing ships in a fair wind. They were barque rigged and had a considerable area of canvas which was set whenever circumstances were favourable.

Long Distance Steamers.

In the meantime, although the North Atlantic crossing had attracted popular attention to the exclusion of most other services, great progress was being made in the long distance routes. When the General Steam Navigation Company, the oldest British purely steamship company, was founded in 1824 its promoters had the intention of running steam ship services all over the world as material improved, and had every confidence that this would come about.

In

1825 the steamship "Enterprise" had proved that it was possible for a steamer to reach India, although at the same time she proved that it was not a commercial proposition. It had been suggested in 1822 to establish a company for the purpose of maintaining a steam service to India and a naval officer was sent out to arouse popular enthusiasm. Within two years 8o, 000 rupees had been raised in Bengal by public subscription, to which the Government of India added 20,000 rupees and an nounced that the whole sum would be given as a prize to the first steamer that could contrive two round voyages between Great Britain and India before 1826, the stipulated time for each passage being 7o days.

This prize caused a syndicate to purchase the paddle steamer "Enterprise" of 479 tons when under construction on the Thames and to fit her out with a fore-and-aft rig to compete for the prize. Her dimensions were 122 feet by 27 and she had an engine of 120 nominal horse power which was designed for nine knots speed but which could be relied upon for six or seven only. She sailed from Falmouth on August 19, 1825 and reached Calcutta 113 days out, including ten days spent coaling at St. Thomas and the Cape of Good Hope. The Government of India awarded her half the promised prize and then purchased her as a warship.