Note 456 — Chapter XV

On Saturday May 8th, 1875, the Bessemer underwent what may be called her first trial—that is, she crossed from Dover to Calais and back again. It would appear from the narratives in the different journals that she had nothing to contend with, on this occasion, in the way of weather or sea, and that, starting at 11.17 A.M. and reaching Calais Harbour at 12.45, her speed was about the same as that of the ordinary boats. Her greatest novelty, the saloon, was, however, not tried on this occasion. On this point Mr. Bessemer remarked, at a dinner given to him in Calais on the same day:—“I never dared to hope that, at first, this ship would be completely successful, so much depends on skill, and you must remember that there are no means whereby absolute automatic action can be given to the saloon, because there is no absolute point of stability. Within the ship we are like Archimedes who wanted a fulcrum for the lever that was to move the world; what we want is to place our fulcrum in an absolutely quiet spot.... In port the machinery will move with a degree of steadiness that is all that can be desired, the very reverse of this will take place at sea when the vessel itself moves and the cabin is required to be quiet: and, just as we require more practice to move the cabin in still water, so we require more practice to keep the cabin still in the moving ship.”