THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIP BUILDING—NEW MODELS FOR SHIPS—STEAM SHIP NAVIGATION—MONITORS—IRON-PLATED FRIGATES—TIN CLADS—RAMS—TORPEDO BOATS—THEIR USE IN THE CONFEDERACY—LIFE RAFTS—YACHT BUILDING—OCEAN YACHT RACE—THE COST OF A YACHT.

From the oars, which were the only means of propulsion used in the galleys of antiquity, to the sails of a subsequent period, by which only favoring winds could be made use of, the advance was great, but not as great as the discovery of steam, by which in modern times the sea is traversed with but little regard for the condition of the wind. To suit the different means used for the propulsion of these vessels, modifications have been made in the manner of their construction, in their form, and with sailing ships in the arrangement of sails. When, with the successful termination of the war of the Revolution, the United States first took its place in the world as an independent nation, the commercial activity which was the natural result of the greater political freedom resulting from the issue of that contest, found its expression first in our commerce; and the self-reliance, which is the inevitable result of liberty; the spirit of inquiry fostered by a departure from old methods, and the abandonment of old traditions, were displayed in the construction, the rig and the general air of the vessels then built, as much as in the construction of the political organization of the new republic.

So much was this the case that American vessels became known the world over for their trim and neat appearance. The blunt, rounded prows and heavy sterns of the English or Dutch vessels were replaced by American models, sharp, nothing superfluous, and riding the waters as easy as a bird. The American clipper ships became renowned for their quick passages, and in transporting teas from China made fortunes for their happy owners, by bringing to the markets the first cargoes of the new crops.

The same thing occurred when steam-vessels first began to cross the ocean. The English in their first steamers followed the models of their largest sailing ships. They still preserved the heavy bowsprit, projecting twenty to thirty feet in advance of the prow, though it was not necessary, as in their sailing ships, for balancing the pressure of the other sails. Their steamers were therefore always heavy at the head, and when, in a rough sea, they were driven by the power of the engine, buried their bows in every large wave. Any one who has crossed the Atlantic in an English steamer of twenty years ago, must have noticed how heavily it labored in rough weather, and how the waves broke over her bow. To take in tons of salt water when the waves ran high, was usual; and in a passage across the Atlantic it was no rare thing to have the salt encrusted on the smoke-stack, from the waves which dashed over the bow and swept aft, reach a thickness of from one to two inches.

The American ship-builder, however, early saw that the model of his craft, which was to be propelled by steam, should differ from that of a ship depending upon its sails alone, and governed himself accordingly. He made her sharp, for speed, and ended her prow straight up and down, as he built the steamboats for river navigation. The consequence was that she rode dry through waves which would pour tons of salt water upon the deck of an English model. George Steers, of New York, a genius in naval architecture, and whose early death was deeply regretted, was the person who did the most to bring into use the present form used in the best models for ocean steamers. One of his first steamers, the Adriatic, built for the Collins line, excited great attention in Liverpool, when she first appeared there. The London Times spoke of her in leading articles, calling upon the English ship-builders to contrast her with ships of their own construction. It spoke of how she glided up the Mersey, making hardly a ripple from her bows, so evenly and quietly she parted the water, while an English steamer of her size so disturbed the stream as to bring up the mud from the bottom. The Times was also specially struck with the ease with which she was handled, turning almost in her length, while for an English steamer turning was an operation requiring so much more space, and making so much more disturbance in the water. From that time to this the English have followed the American models in the construction and equipment of their steamers, and their example has been imitated by most other nations.

The latest specimens of American ship building are shown in the cut representing the Pennsylvania and Ohio on the stocks. These vessels are the pioneers of the new line between Philadelphia and Liverpool.

Nor is this the only change which naval architecture has undergone. The material for ship-building, especially for sea going steamers, has in modern times come to be chiefly iron. Livingstone, in his book of travels in Africa, tells how, when he was putting together on the banks of one of the rivers there the pieces of a small iron steamer which had been sent out to him from England, the natives gathered round, and inspecting the work going on, jeered at him for thinking that a boat built of such a material would float. Their whole experience with iron was that it would sink. When, however, the steamer was completed and launched, they could hardly express their astonishment at finding that she floated.

Though every school-boy, from his text-books on natural philosophy, can explain the reasons why a ship built of iron will float, yet our ancestors would have considered, a proposition to construct a ship from this material very much as the native Africans did. Even in the construction of wooden ships, iron enters now much more than it did formerly. The knees, or bent oak beams, by which the form of the ship was made, have become so scarce and dear that they are now frequently made of iron. It takes so long for an oak tree to grow, and the demand was so great for limbs of such a natural bend as could be used for ship-building, that even before the use of iron for such portions of a ship, the process was in frequent use of bending the beams, or knees, by steaming then and then subjecting them to great pressure.

Iron as a material for ships has some very great and material advantages. It is on the whole lighter, so that an iron ship weighs less, absolutely, than a wooden one of the same size. Then as the knees and other timbers take up less space when made of iron, than when made of wood, and as the thickness of the sides is much less, more space is secured in an iron ship than in a wooden one for carrying the cargo. Besides this, a vessel built of iron can be divided into water-tight compartments, so that an accidental leak will damage only that portion of the cargo contained in that compartment in which it occurs.

This method of construction is also another factor of safety in case of accident by collision or in any other way. One compartment may be injured so as to fill with water, while the others, being uninjured, their buoyancy will still keep the ship afloat. An objection, however, to the use of compartments lies in the fact that, as they must be riveted to the sides, the rows of holes for the rivets necessarily weaken the strength of the sides, so that a ship with compartments, which touches on a rock or other obstacle, at one end, is more apt to break apart than one without compartments, as the sides, unsupported by the buoyancy of the water, have the less strength to support her weight in the length. Still, all things considered, iron has come so much in favor for the construction of large ships, that it is in much more general use for that purpose than wood.

In the construction of an iron ship, the naval architect draws his plans, and sends his construction drawings to the iron rolling mill, where each plate is made of the exact curve and dimensions. The holes for the rivets are punched by machinery, and the plates are then ready to be put together. The hull of the vessel is made of iron bars riveted together, and the plates are riveted to the iron upright ribs, each plate overlapping the preceding. The ribs are placed from ten to eighteen inches apart, and the whole structure is of iron. The simplicity of the construction of an iron ship is such, that when the plates are ready, it can be put together with wonderful rapidity.

For constructing ships of war, iron is almost wholly used, and the experience of our late war has almost entirely changed the methods and theories of naval warfare. The enormous frigate, carrying a heavy armament of numerous guns, and manned by a thousand men, has been replaced by a small craft—so low in the water as to project above it only a few inches, carrying but a single gun, or at most only two, which are of very heavy calibre, and are mounted in a revolving tower in the middle of the craft. The general description of the Monitor, that it was a cheese-box on a raft, aptly describes their appearance.

By the introduction of the monitor as a war vessel, a complete change was wrought in naval warfare. The large hulk of the old ships afforded only a better target for the heavy guns of this new craft, while its own slight projection above the water, and the fact that its engines and propeller were covered by the water, afforded it almost absolute security from the enemy's guns. Even if it was struck, the round shape of its iron clad deck, and its revolving tower caused the balls to glance off without affecting much injury. In October, 1861, forty-five days from the laying of her keel, the St. Louis was launched, being the first iron-clad ship owned by the United States. Other vessels of similar design were rapidly brought to completion, and these iron-clad river boats began their task of opening the navigation of the Mississippi. The St. Louis was built in the city of the same name, by Mr. James B. Eads, of that city.

The cuts represent the shape of some of the iron-clads built for service in the western rivers, where the shallowness of the stream made it necessary that the craft should not draw too much water.

For the same reasons the "tin-clads," as they were called from the thinness of the plates with which they were covered, were built. The "double-enders" were also thus constructed, in order to navigate, as necessary, either way, in the narrow and crooked streams, where our navy performed such admirable work during the War.

The use of heavy artillery in naval warfare has also caused great modifications to be made in the construction of other naval ships than the monitors. To avoid the injury caused by heavy artillery, the idea was suggested of plating them with iron. The most extensive experiments of this kind were made in England, but not with the most gratifying success. It was found that the iron plating rendered the ships too heavy, if it was made thick enough to be of effective service. In a rough sea the vessels rolled so heavily as to be nearly unmanageable, while the weight of the plating on the sides acted with a leverage to tear the ships in halves, so that they were considered almost unsafe. One of them, also, on her trial trip, having capsized and sunk with her entire crew, public confidence in them as serviceable vessels was entirely lost; and the advantage of iron-plating large ships of war may be still considered as an open question.

It has also been suggested that ships of war should be furnished with a sharp beak of steel, and with such powerful engines as should secure for them great speed, and, without trusting at all to the use of their guns, should be used as rams to run into and crush their adversaries. This suggestion, which is practically returning to the practice of the ancients before the invention of either gunpowder or steam, has never yet, however, been carried out in fact. So far, therefore, the most serviceable modern ships of war are the monitors. The largest and most expensive of these, the Dunderberg, was not finished until after the war was over, and was sold, with the consent of the government, by her builder, to Russia for $1,000,000, and crossed the Atlantic safely, a feat which showed her to be sea-worthy, and more worthy of confidence than any of the armored vessels built by the English Government.

In modern times attention has also been given to constructing vessels which should be navigated under the water. Fulton, whose name is so inseparably connected with the introduction of the steamboat, made an attempt, the first on record, in the harbor of Brest, on the west coast of France, in 1801, under the order of Napoleon I., to blow up an English ship with a torpedo, a weapon of warfare which is said to have been first suggested by Franklin, who experimented with them in the Revolution. Fulton used, in this attempt, a submarine boat of his own invention, the model and construction of which have never been made public. His attempt being unsuccessful the project was abandoned, as Napoleon withdrew his support from the scheme.

During our late civil war, while the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, was blockaded by the ships of the national navy, and the bombardment of Fort Sumter continued, attempts were made by the besieged to destroy the blockading ships by torpedoes, which were to be fastened by a submarine craft. One of these boats, called a "cigar boat," though both ends were pointed, is thus described: She was thirty feet long and six feet broad, painted a lead color. Her propelling power consisted of a six-horse engine, geared to a shaft turning a propeller. At her bow was an iron bowsprit, so arranged that it could be lowered to the required depth, and at the end of this the torpedo was secured. When afloat only about fifteen feet of her length projected some fourteen inches above the water. For fuel she used anthracite coal, and attained a speed of about six miles an hour. Her tonnage was about seven or eight tons, and in this craft Lieutenant Glassells, of Virginia, volunteered to attack the iron-clad, the Ironsides, which was the most powerful ship at that time afloat in the navy, rated at from three to four thousand tons. The Ironsides was a very heavily armed ship, provided with eleven-inch guns, and capable of delivering the heaviest broadside ever fired from a single ship. On the night of the sixth of October, 1863, Lieutenant Glassells set out on his expedition from one of the wharves of Charleston. The sky was covered with clouds, and the night was very dark. His crew consisted of a fireman and a pilot, and his offensive armament of a torpedo, in position, and a double-barreled fowling-piece. Being asked why he carried a gun on such an expedition, he answered: "You know I have served in the United States navy, and I shall not attack my old comrades like an assassin. I shall hail and fire into them, with this, then let the torpedo do its work like an open and declared foe." This speech is a fair specimen of the singular mixture of honor and disloyalty which characterized the whole secession movement. This lieutenant could desert his navy, could take up arms against his country, but could not attack one of its ships without first giving its crew warning.

The "cigar boat" steamed silently on its course until within about fifty yards of the Ironsides, without being discovered. Everything on the immense ship seemed as quiet as the grave. Suddenly, in the still night, the lieutenant cries, "Ship ahoy!" "Where away?" is the answer. "We have come to attack you," cries the lieutenant, at the same time firing his fowling-piece, checking the engine, and directing the torpedo. It struck, but before the "cigar boat" could retire, with a gurgling roar it exploded. The explosion sounded like the discharge of a submerged gun. Water mixed with flame was forced by the explosion far up above the gunwales of the ship, and bearing up the bows of the smaller craft, poured back in torrents through the chimney, put out the fires, and rendered the "cigar boat" helpless.

For a moment everything on board the Ironsides was in confusion; but the discipline of the navy was equal to the emergency. The drums beat to quarters, the guns were manned, and the marines poured a steady fire upon the little craft, now floating helplessly on the sea. Lieutenant Glassells jumped into the water, to escape death from the shower of balls; the pilot followed him, but the fireman remained at his post, as the boat drifted away from danger. Glassells then called for help; the marines ceased firing, and a small boat from the Ironsides rescued him from the water. The pilot swam back to the "cigar boat" and he and the fireman bailed her out, rekindled the fire, and escaped to Charleston. Glassells was afterwards sent North, and under confinement his health broke down. The Ironsides was sufficiently injured by the explosion to be sent from her station for repairs. Had the torpedo struck her further below, it is thought to be probable that she would have been sunk.

Another torpedo boat was also built in Charleston, upon a different model. This was called the "fish boat." It was built of boiler-iron, was thirty feet long by five feet eight inches deep, and about four and a half feet wide, amidships. Its middle section was an ellipse flattening to a wedge shape at both ends, which were alike. It was intended to rise or sink in the water, like a fish, and in order to do this its specific gravity had to be kept equal that of water. In navigating under water the boat had also to be kept upon an even keel. On her bowsprit, which projected ten feet, the torpedo was secured, and in order to balance the hundred and fifty pounds this weighed, an equal amount of ballast was stowed at the stern. Ten feet from her bow she had two iron fins, one on each side, about four feet long, seven inches wide and three-eighths of an inch thick. These fins were fastened to an inch rod of iron passing through water-tight fittings in her sides, and provided with a crank inside, so that the fins could be worked in any direction, or at any angle, forcing the craft to the surface, or below, or forward or backward. By working them also in opposite directions the vessel could be turned as a row-boat is by pulling with one oar and backing water with the other. At the stern, midway between the top and bottom, she was provided with a propeller, worked by a shaft, fitted water-tight, and propelled by hand-power inside the hold. On her deck were two round hatches, or man holes, about ten feet apart, and fitted with plates of such thick glass as is used in side-walks, for cellar lights, set in iron frames, working upon hinges, fastened on the inside, and fitting water-tight when closed. Between these hatches were two flexible air pipes, with air-tight valves, so that when within a foot of the surface, by opening the valves, fresh air could be drawn into the hold. The crew depended upon the violent action of their hats, when the valves were open, for making a current sufficient to displace the foul air, and bring in a supply of fresh.

When the boat was finished, in the first experiment made with her, she carried a crew of eight men, and a shifting ballast of iron plates. She moved from the wharf, passed down the river, just showing the tops of the hatches, dove under a ship lying in the stream, rose on the other side, and returned to the wharf. This was done successfully a second time, when the chief of the crew left her for some purpose, and the rest of the men, though unaccustomed to the work, undertook to perform the experiment alone. She moved out, dove down, but never came up. About a fortnight afterward she was found, raised, the dead removed, and the whole inside disinfected, cleaned and painted white. On the second trial she filled just as the crew had manned her, and sunk. The captain and one other saved themselves, but the rest of the crew, consisting of five, were drowned in her. Another crew volunteered to man her, and on the night of the 17th of February, 1864, she set out from Sullivan's Island, to which place she had run from her anchorage, to attack the blockading fleet, carrying a torpedo affixed to her bowsprit.

During the whole night the bombardment of the city was kept up, and nothing was heard of the fish boat. The next morning a heavy fog hung over the coast, clearing up about eight in the morning, and the sloop-of-war Housatonic was discovered to be sunk in about six fathoms of water, her crew swarming in her rigging for safety. The fish boat had destroyed her, and destroyed herself in doing so. This was the first time that she had ever been used in exploding a torpedo, and the cause of her destruction is supposed to have been as follows: The weight of the torpedo, on her bowsprit, was balanced by the shifting ballast in her stern, and thus she was kept on an even keel. As soon, however, as the torpedo struck and exploded, the balance was destroyed, her bows were lifted by the weight in the stern, control was lost of her, and the Housatonic, sinking from the damage done her by the explosion, settled upon the "fish boat" and carried her and her crew to the bottom.

Disastrous as these attempts at submarine navigation were, yet they are the most successful yet made. We have seen else where that men have, for other purposes than war, been able to descend under the surface of the sea, and stay there quite a time without injury; but their appliances are not vessels intended for navigation.

Let us turn, then, from this record of how human ingenuity has been taxed to devise means to destroy men, to the consideration of the new devices made for their comfort or safety in crossing the sea. One of the most useful of these is a life raft or bolsa, one of which is represented in our cut. This consists of three elastic cylinders, made of india-rubber cloth, each twenty-five feet long. When empty they are easily packed in a very small compass. For use they are blown up, and fastened to a prepared staging. The cut represents one which crossed the Atlantic in 1867, arriving at Southampton July 25, having started from New York forty-three days before. She was rigged with two masts secured to the staging, and her crew consisted of three men, John Wilkes, George Miller and Jerry Mallene. A bellows to fill the cylinders, should they require it, was an important item in her cargo. The crew kept alternate watch, sleeping, by turns, in a tent spread on the staging. Their supply of water they carried in casks. The experiment of crossing the Atlantic was made to show the safety of a raft thus constructed.

For attaining speed, and thus diminishing the tedium and the risk of an Atlantic voyage, Mr. Wynans, of Baltimore, has invented a cigar-shaped boat, as it is called, though it is pointed at both ends. Various causes have hitherto prevented his final experiment with his boat, but he hopes to be able to make with it an average speed of at least eighteen miles an hour.

Crossing the Atlantic has become so common, and sea-sickness making the trip so disagreeable and dangerous to many people, attention has been turned to inventing a method of construction which shall destroy the cause for this malady, by keeping the saloon always on a level, notwithstanding the pitching and rolling of the ship in a high sea. Mr. Bessemer, the inventor of the new process for making steel, has invented a boat, which he is now constructing, and which he thinks will make it perfectly feasible to cross the Atlantic without the necessity of paying the usual tribute to old Neptune. The general idea of his ship may be thus described: The saloon for passengers is to be balanced upon a frame work similar in principle to that by which the lamps on ship-board are supported. An outer circle swings upon pivots at each end of its diameter, and within another circle supports the lamp, which is swung upon pivots at right angles with those in the first. However, then, the ship may pitch or roll, the lamp remains perpendicular, the circles adjusting themselves to meet the motion of the ship. This idea is to be applied in the construction of the saloon, so that it will remain constantly on a level, and as Mr. Bessemer has a plenty of money to construct a dozen of ships for an experiment, the public may expect before long to hear of a trial. The first ship of the kind is reported as on the stocks, and to be rapidly approaching completion. Nor is this the only style of ship suggested to obviate sea-sickness. A Russian, M. Alexandroiski, proposes a new form of stationary ship-saloon, which differs from that of Mr. Bessemer in having the cabin float in kind of a tank placed between the engines, instead of being hung on pivots. This invention, it is stated, has been tested by the Russian Naval Department, and is reported to have been found entirely satisfactory, the rolling motion of the vessel being completely counteracted. With the success of one or the other of these plans, an ocean voyage, even in a rough sea, will become a pleasure trip, like sailing in a painted ship upon a painted ocean; the wildness of a storm even may become merely an exciting spectacle, like looking at the representation of a hurricane in a theatre, with the further advantage of having it real and life-like.

Perhaps the change which has been brought about in our feeling with regard to the ocean is shown more in the yachting of modern times than in anything else. The idea of making a trip across the Atlantic is no longer considered an almost foolhardy undertaking, but even our yachts have made it a field for their races, and a match across the Atlantic has become not an unusual thing. The owning of yachts has become so general among our rich men, that yacht-building has become a regular branch of naval architecture, and constant improvements are being made in their models, and greater luxury displayed in their fitting up. George Steers, who has been mentioned before for his improvements in the model of the steamship, made his first reputation by the construction of the yacht America, which was sent over to England, and proved the fastest vessel in the regatta on the occasion of the first World's Fair in London. This yacht, after her victory, was bought by an Englishman, and never used again, being left to rot at her moorings. However, she changed the yacht models of Europe.

A yacht race across the Atlantic was one of the sensations of the year 1866. Three yachts entered the contest, the Henrietta, the Fleetwing and the Vista. They started from Sandy Hook one day in December, and though the season had been unusually stormy, and they encountered gales almost all the way, so that frequently they were forced to sail under bare poles, and the Fleetwing lost several of her sailors, who were washed overboard, yet they arrived safe at Cowes on the same day, after a fourteen days' voyage, the Henrietta winning the race by a couple of hours. This yacht was the property of James Gordon Bennett, Jr., the son of the owner of the New York Herald. During the war her owner freely offered her to the government, and she has done good service. After the victory Mr. Bennett sold her for $15,000, and purchased the Fleetwing for $65,000, re-christening her the Dauntless. This yacht, in another ocean race in 1870, was beaten by the Cambria, an English yacht. These prices show the cost of seeking one's pleasure in a yacht, and yet it is only one item of the expense. To keep one of the vessels costs more than the expenses of the majority of the households in the country. A crew of five men is needed, and it is a question whether, all things considered, more real substantial interest and enjoyment is not taken by a lover of the sea and of sailing in an ordinary sail-boat, which he and a friend or two are amply competent to man and manage, than is taken by the owners of the most luxuriantly furnished yachts in the world. As pleasure ships, however, the yacht is all that can be desired. Many of them contain spacious saloons; their cabins are almost always paneled in costly woods, and most luxuriantly furnished, and even gas has been provided for them. It is estimated that the yachts of the New York club alone have cost more than $2,000,000, and those of the whole country about $5,000,000. Much of this is the mere luxury of ostentation; but as the real pleasures there are in thus visiting distant lands come to be better appreciated, much of this foolish expenditure will be abandoned.