with the carpets coiled up for a pillow, I was as fast locked in slumber as the weariest mortal could wish to be.

It must have been past six, when the grinding motion of the machine awoke me. The tide had come up during my sleep, and the owner of the machines was hauling them up the slope, in readiness for the morning-bathers. He was not a little astonished when, pushing back the bolt of the lock, I looked out, minus my coat and neckcloth, and hailed him. But I assumed extraordinary vigour and briskness, and rated him for being late, and compelling me to effect a forcible entry into his machine. I bathed-satisfied the man with an extra sixpence for the damage I had done him, and walking back to the town, recovered my carpet-bag before any one was abroad. Smith not being in a condition to appear at breakfast, and Brown being unable to proceed from derangement of head and stomach, I bade the party at the hotel farewell, and taking the first omnibus to the nearest station, reached my wife and children just as they were setting out together to the morning-service. Now, I consider this an adventure worth relating, and one got through upon the whole with fair courage and energy. Only fancy the town a wood in a distant country, and the policeman an Indian-neither of these so unpleasant or so formidable as my experiences-and you will allow me the honours, I flatter myself, of an enterprising traveller. My story, besides, is true; and I have not attempted to heighten it by describing the subsequent embarrassment I felt under the eyes and questions of my travelling-companions-for it would never have done to let it be known at Our Terrace that a man so particular about his bed, and his dignity likewise, had no bed to go to. To this hour, as the idea strikes my wife, she asks suddenly: Where, did you say, you slept that night?'

THE RED RIVER SETTLEMENT.* EVEN in these days of travelling, when many run to and fro, and, on their return home, increase the knowledge of their friends by publishing all they have seen and heard, there may still be some to whom the title of our paper may present no definite idea; nor might the further information, that the Red River settlement was the southernmost part of Rupert's Land, entirely enlighten their minds, since lately we heard a gentleman of at least ordinary attainments surmise that if this very region existed at all, it was at the best only an island somewhere;' adding a faint hope that degree of hope which is only one remove from despair-that the bishop of Rupert's Land might know where his diocese was situated!

When, in 1670, Charles II. granted to the Hudson's Bay Company a charter, by the terms of which they became absolute lords and proprietors of the soil, with exclusive rights of trade,' the territory thus granted, which includes all the country the waters of which run into Hudson's Bay, received the name of Rupert's Land, in remembrance of that princely cousin who, as warrior and statesman, in science and in art, was equally distinguished. In the year 1811, in the exercise of their chartered rights, the Company sold to Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, a tract of land, which, commencing on the western shores of Lake Winnipeg, exactly in the parallel of London, and extending to the Lake Winnipegoos, westward, runs southward to the international line between the American and British territories. Red River, one of the feeders of Lake Winnipeg, is within this grant; and from that lake to Pembina, Lord Selkirk

The Red River Settlement, its Rise, Progress, and Present State; with some Account of the Native Races, and its General History to the Present Day. By Alexander Ross, author of Furhunters of the Far West, &c. 8vo. London: Smith and Elder. 1856.

determined to place his colony, the good-will of the native Indians being purchased by the annual quit-rent of 200 pounds of tobacco, paid to the chiefs of the Saulteaux and Cree tribes. The motives of his lordship for founding a colony in this 'isolated spot, distant 700 miles from the nearest seaport, and that port blockaded by solid ice for ten months of the year,' were the benevolent ones of forming a society of the Company's old servants, who, assisted by some emigrants sent out by him, should make a centre from which might radiate instruction, religious and secular, to the Indians and the half-breeds, and act as pioneers in the wilderness, who might open otherwise inaccessible paths to the spread of the gospel.' Those of our readers who may remember the manly, straightforward narrative which Mr Ross gave of his adventures as a fur-hunter of the far west, and on the Colombia River,' and the simplicity with which he related deeds of bravery, suffering, and endurance, which in another field would have stamped him a hero, will gladly follow him to his chosen home in the Red River Colony, where, after successive faithful service under the Astor, the North-west, and the Hudson's Bay Company, he has settled on a grant of land made in acknowledgment of many years' exertions. More than forty years, we gather, has been the term of his acquaintance with the western regions. Few local advantages exist to attract the emigrant. "The river runs through the centre of the colony, from south to north; the west side is one continued level plain, interspersed with only a few shrubs and bushes to diversify the monotony of a bleak and open sea of plain. On the east, the landscape is more varied with hill and dale, and skirted at no great distance by what is called the pine-hills, covered with timber, and running parallel to the river all the way. With the exception of this moderately elevated ridge, all the other parts are low, level, marshy, and wooded. The banks of the river are low on both sides. Deep snows, intense cold, and stormy winds, characterise its seven months' winter. The range

of the thermometer is from 49 degrees below zero, in winter, to 105 degrees in the shade in the summer.' The buffalo has disappeared, but wolves still inflict much mischief; we shall therefore appreciate more highly the courage and endurance of the Scottish emigrants, the first brigade' of whom arrived in 1812. Within a few hours of their arrival, they were opposed by a band of painted mounted warriors, emissaries of the North-western Company, who regarded the new colonists as enemies. In risk of perishing for lack of food, they bought the escort of some half-breeds towards Pembina, by the sacrifice of their little household treasures, the gun borne by a parent at Culloden, or the wedding-ring from the wife's finger. They passed the winter under tents, Indian fashion, joining in the chase with their hosts, thereby fostering kind and generous feeling between the two races.

In May 1813, they returned to the Red River, to commence the labours of agriculture-'their only dependence for food being a harsh tasteless wild-parsnip, and a plant called by our people fat-hen, which, whether raw or boiled, they devoured without salt.' The small quantity of seed-corn which they sowed yielded an abundant return; to save it, they resolved to winter at Pembina again, where they found their former hosts cold, and even hostile. Many had to barter their clothing for food, and returned to the colony frostbitten, naked, and discouraged. A wellmeant injunction against any productions, whether flesh or vegetable, being taken out of the colony, acted most prejudicially against them, the North-westers being much inconvenienced by the prohibition. The following year they invaded the colony, burnt buildings, wounded several persons, made Governor M'Donell prisoner, and ultimately drove the whole body of colonists forth, burning their dwellings to ashes. The

Hudson's Bay Company here interposed, and brought back the emigrants from the place to which they had been banished, 300 miles off. In the autumn, another body of emigrants arrived. The conditions on which the party were induced to seek this home in the wilderness were, firstly, they were to enjoy the services of a minister of religion of their own persuasion; secondly, each settler was to receive 200 acres of land at 5s. an acre, payable in produce. This payment was remitted in consideration of their severe trials. Thirdly, they were to have a market in the colony for all their produce; and, lastly, to enjoy all the privileges of British subjects.

Small hope was there at present of any rights being enjoyed by the hapless emigrants; they were obliged to disperse in every direction to maintain life; harassed by the open enmity of the North-west Company, and in greater danger from their false friendship. These came to them speaking in Gaelic! The music of their native tongue was for the time irresistible. Still, after battling through the winter, next spring found the whole party reassembled in the colony, and every hand toiling to get seed into the ground. But the North-west party was again upon them, and on the fatal 19th of June, the flower of the Red River colony was slain. The governor-in-chief was among the victims, and only by the generosity and personal devotion of Mr Grant, who headed the hostile party, the remnant was saved. Again homeless and exiles, they found shelter once more at Norway House. Lord Selkirk being at the time on his way to visit his infant colony, seized on the head-quarters of the Northwest, by way of retaliation, and, in reparation to those who had lost their all, assigned lots of land in free socage, marking off two lots respectively for a church and school-house. 'Killdonan' was the name assigned to the parish, derived from the name of the parish in Sutherland from which the greater part of the settlers had emigrated. The colonists now set to work heart and hand, and Lord Selkirk took his final leave of them. Although the results of harvest were abundant, they again resolved to economise their harvests for seed, by retiring to Pembina to chase; but thence they were obliged to extend their journey far into the open plains, themselves and their starving families exposed day and night to the fierce storms of a Hudson's winter. On the eve of Christmas-day, when reduced to the last gasp, they reached an Indian-camp, where they were kindly received. It was a winter of unusual privation; and the Scotch having nothing else to offer, 'they became the drudges of the camp, the slaves of the slave, servants of the savages.' The year 1818, which found them again in the colony, was one of unusual hardship, the fish, fruits, and herbs of the wild region having failed; and their crowning loss was in the forcible abduction of Mr Sutherland, who, being an elder of the kirk, had privilege, in the absence of a minister, to baptise and marry, and was their chief religious consoler, and respected as such by all who knew him. Still, labour advanced, the crop looked healthy and vigorous, when, just as the corn was in ear, and the barley almost ripe, a cloud of grasshoppers fell like a heavy shower of snow on the devoted colony. Every vegetable product of the soil was destroyed, except a few ears of half-ripe barley, gathered in the women's aprons. At this juncture, their vexations were complicated by the arrival of some French families, headed by two priests, one of whom is still in the colony, as Roman Catholic bishop. To Pembina they again fled. The next year, 1819, was blighted by the larvæ left by the grasshoppers of the preceding year: they stripped each leaf as it appeared, poisoned the waters, extinguished the fires, and the stench of the dead was worse than the ravages of the living. Even Scottish patience waxed low, and there was great risk of their taking wholly to a savage life; but the

desire to make for their children a home predominated. Some men were sent, on snow-shoes, several hundred miles to purchase seed-corn; making their way back in flat-bottomed boats with 250 bushels in June 1820. Since then, Red River has not been without grain for seed, and the possibility of communication between the colony and the Mississippi by boats during highwater was ascertained.

The year 1821 brought a turn in fortune for our colonists, by the coalition between the rival companies; the poor Indians also benefited, as the inducement to stimulate their passions in the cause of one or the other party was at an end. This, too, was the last year of annoyance from grasshoppers; but the disappointment of their long-promised minister was turned to heartburning by the arrival of a Church of England missionary. Save me from my friends!' might have been the cry from the Red River; for, kindly as their especial patron, Lord Selkirk, proved himself, expending altogether L.85,000 on his colony, and forward as the company was to form and assist any plans for aiding it, yet all were so inappropriate, that nothing but loss and vexation ensued. For instance, a 'buffalo wool-company' was devised, a staff of superintendents sent out, clerks, operatives, and co-operatives-such as curriers, skinners, wool-dressers, teasers, &c. The only results, beyond diverting the population from the wholesome pursuits of agriculture, were the production of some yards of cloth-costing in the colony L.2, 10s. per yard, and fetching in England 48. 6d. !—and the useless expenditure of L.6500. Whether as a consequence, or merely as a coincidence, we may notice the first arrival of a herd of cattle, which proved a great boon to the colony, and were eagerly purchased. A model farm and dairy were also established on an extravagant scale, while there was neither ox to plough nor cow to milk! A few years witnessed the ruin of this project. A water-mill was sent out, but no one could set it up; it was reshipped to England; and after ten years, a millwright sent over expressly, set it up-after an expenditure of L.1500. A fulling-mill was erected, when the colony did not produce as much wool as would furnish it with socks and mittens. An attempt being resolved on to introduce sheep-farming on a large scale, some gentlemen were sent south to purchase; they went as far as Kentucky, unmindful that the sheep must be driven all this way-many hundred miles. The poor creatures sank under the hardships of the journey, having sometimes to push their way through dense thorny grass. It was necessary to slaughter them daily by scores, and 1200 dead sheep marked the course they had taken. Then followed a 'tallow company,' and 473 head of cattle were branded T. C., and sent into the prairie under the care of two herdsmen. When the winter set in, they were slightly sheltered, lightly fed; they became too numbed and weak to seek for food, the wolves preyed on them, aiding starvation in reducing their numbers; and in two years the company gave up with considerable loss. The classes of emigrants who from time to time were brought in to the original Highlanders, were little calculated to aid. A body of disbanded German soldiers were the firstgood boon-companions, but quarrelsome and idle. A party of Swiss, chiefly watchmakers and pastry-cooks, were good in themselves, but wholly unfit for the position, and, retaining their mountain pride, they nearly suffered starvation before seeking relief. French Canadians and half-breeds poured in from the north, more half-breeds and Indians from other quarters, producing a painful deterioration in the habits of the younger Scottish emigrants, whose parents felt with grief that they who were the foundation, the stay of the colony, were alone neglected in religious matters, while there was an ample staff of clergymen of the Anglican and Romish Churches.

The year 1826 was marked by fearful natural

calamities. The snow-storms set in with great severity and unusual suddenness, killing the hunters' horses, and driving the buffalo beyond human reach. Inevitable famine followed; the scattered parties did not know where to find each other; some never were found. Whole families, huddling together for warmth, were frozen into one mass of ice; others were found in a state of wild delirium. One poor woman, with her child on her back, sunk when near help; she must have travelled at least 125 miles in three days. Every hand that could give help was open and extended; but other ills were awaiting them. The snows were from three to five feet deep, the ice five feet seven inches thick; and when in the early spring the water began to flow, alarm was felt. On the 2d of May, the water rose nine feet; on the 4th, it overspread the banks of the river, and so rapid was its rise, so level the country, that the settlers fled for dear life, frequently with only the clothes on their backs. The company's servants and the humane governor did good service with their boats in saving life; but hardly a building was left standing. 'Many houses drifted along whole; in some were seen dogs, howling franticly, and cats jumping wildly from side to side. The most singular spectacle was a house in flames, drifting along in the night, the one half immersed in water, the other furiously burning.' This favourable opportunity for freebooting was embraced by the German soldiers, who sold the poor colonists their own cattle as beef! It was not till the 15th of June they could approach the sites of their old houses. The Swiss and German emigrants quitted the colony after this disaster. Orkneymen took their places, and the Scotch began the world anew for the fourth time in Red River. In less than four years, 204 houses had been erected, barns built beyond the highest flood-mark, and most favourable crops ensued from the flooding of the land.

We may here introduce an account of the short but glorious summer of this region. A stranger entering Red River in June, would be dazzled at the prospect around him. June, July, and August are the imposing months, when nature appears luxuriant in the extreme. The unbounded pasture, cattle grazing everywhere without restraint, the crops waving in the wind, every species of vegetation rich in blossom, and fertile as imagination itself. . . . The summer picture of this colony is truly delightful and enchanting, but like others of the same kind, after the first burst of admiration, the sensation of viewing the same objects over and over again, and one day's ride, exhausts the store of novelty.' Dearly must the traveller pay for a step beyond the public road, 'the blood-thirsty mosquitoes rising in clouds at every step.' In July, the horse-fly, or bull-dog, adds its goads; and when these disappear, the house-fly takes their place, filling the houses, spoiling the furniture, and not only attacking the hands and face, but stunning the ears by its perpetual buzz. Where the fine weather is so brief, all agricultural occupations are unavoidably done in haste; and as, unfortunately, the seed-time and one of the huntingseasons coincide, the difficulty is complicated. The general desultory habits of the majority of the population, who are content to borrow all they need when proceeding to hunt, and then recklessly exhaust the proceeds of the chase, with little regard for their creditors, act as a perpetual drain on the industrious settler. Tea and tobacco the half-breeds must have, if hunger and nakedness to themselves and families be the result. Forty-two pounds of tea per head was the consumption, during seven months only, of a party of this description; and little children will alternately suck at the breast and the pipe.

Evidences of advancing civilisation, shewn by the erection of a court-house and jail, and on one occasion by the execution of an Indian for murder, gradually appeared; but the appointment of a lawyer, a paid

servant of the company, under the title of Recorder of Rupert Land, and placed as a judge in Red River, gave little satisfaction. The colony had been retransferred to the company by Lord Selkirk's executors, and the usual jealousy between the governed and the governors was at work, although the latter seem to have been zealous in their wishes and endeavours to benefit their subjects. Each decade of years had been marked by some public misfortune, and 1846 brought the new visitation of pestilence. Dysentery, first breaking out among the Indians, rapidly spread through the population, until one-sixteenth of the whole were laid low; many entire families were swept away from this hitherto healthy district; and in 1852, the decennial visitation was anticipated by another flood, causing the river to spread for six miles beyond either bank for a distance of fourteen miles, and engulfing the labours of twenty-six years!

In the preceding year, the 'long vexed question' of a Presbyterian minister was happily ended for the Scotch, by the arrival of the Rev. J. Black, sent by the Free Kirk of Scotland. As for the conversion of the Indians, Mr Ross is of opinion that the farmer must be the first missionary. While the Indian's predatory and restless habits continue, he will be likely to forget during the hunt the instructions of the preceding months; the excitement of drinking must supply the excitement of the chase. When fixed by farming occupations to the soil, and isolated from evil European influences-for the red man is as ready to adopt the vices of civilisation as he is slow to learn its virtues-the 'good seed of the word' may have time not only to take root, but to spring up and bear abundant fruit.

How dear their adopted home is to the settlers, we will express in the words of the writer, who, after telling us of the rapidity and liberality with which the smallest community in the colony' built up their church and manse, endowing their minister with the stipend of L.100 per annum, the company adding L.50, adds: The people of Red River possess singular advantages and incitements to self-support. Their salt, their soap, their sugar, their leather, is supplied by the colony. They have no land-tax, no landlord, no rent-days, nor dues of any kind either to church or state. Every shilling they earn is their own. With the exception of iron, all their essentials are within their grasp every day in the year; and as for luxuries, they are easily procured by labour at their very door. No farmers in the world, on a small scale, no settlement or colony of agriculturists, can be pronounced so happy, independent, and comfortable as those in Red River.' Among so mixed a population, where every shade of political opinion in the surrounding communities is reflected in many minds, there must always be a certain degree of commotion and unrest; but the soberminded agree that, if their present mode of government be plainly carried out, they could make no change for the better. The neighbourhood of St Peter's, the capital of the new state of Minnesota, is their chief temptation and attraction; but though they may flit for a time to that land, yet they returned from the sky-coloured water to their own ruder home. The red men who still are found among them are not of the poetical type of Indians; yet, excepting perhaps the Saulteaux, they are kind and gentle, unless their interest lies the other way. Their honesty stands out remarkably, although the penal code is of the lightest nature.

We may fitly conclude with the words of a visitor to this interesting district. 'I have travelled much in my time, and seen many countries; but under all circumstances, I have seen no part of the world where the poor man enjoys so many privileges, and is more happy and independent, than in Red River. Judging from what I have seen, you seem to live almost

without laws, and yet enjoy in that primeval condition more real happiness, comfort, and contentment than any other people I ever saw.'

THE GREAT EASTERN STEAM-SHIP. THE grand destructives of nature are the winds and the waves; their appointed business is breaking, grinding, and pulverising. Even the adamant-like rock of the sea-shore is changed by their pertinacious effort into incoherent and almost impalpable sand. But the power they can exert in their lawful task has, nevertheless, a narrow and well-defined limit, which appears really to have been set within that of the antagonistic capacities of human ingenuity. Science can now accomplish what Canute of old shrunk from attempting. This fact was practically illustrated so soon as breakwater barriers and light-houses had been reared amidst the storm-surf of the ocean, which could stand firm while the violence of the hurricane raged remorselessly around them.

But is there anything in the mere necessities of buoyancy which tends to reverse this state of affairs? Is there any sufficient reason why floating-ships must occasionally be abandoned to the spirit of the oceanstorm, when claimed as its holocausts? So long as men were true to early tradition, and built their vessels of wood, there could be no doubt the winds and the waves must often prove to be too much for the resisting capabilities of the structure. Beams and planks could only be procured of a certain thickness, and these could only be attached together with a very limited amount of tenacity. The strongest mass of timber man could frame proved to be as frail as a match in the hand of the tempest. When, however, abandoning these early traditions, shipwrights turned from the forest to seek their material in the mine-when they deserted wood for iron, and took to the hammer and the anvil in the place of the auger and the adze, the case was altogether changed. By the aid of the steam-hammer, ribs and plates can be forged of any dimensions and of any strength; and by the employment of red-hot rivets, these plates and ribs may be so attached together, that the lines of union have actually as much strength as if composed of solid material. The soundness of the work may be tested, too, at every stage by the Titanic wrench of the hydraulic-press, until perfect assurance is attained that no weak places are left in the fabric through accident. The first attempts at this novel kind of naval architecture, which was to endow dense iron with the properties of cork, proved to be failures in a great degree, as was to be anticipated. As in all other walks of art, it seemed that a certain degree of practice and experience was essential to perfection. It has generally been conceived that the ill-fated President steam-ship snapped across some Atlantic wave, as a match might be snapped between the fingers; the still more gigantic Great Western, Himalaya, Atrato, and Persia have, however, since that unfortunate accident, continued to plough their ways in safety through the ocean storms. The Great Britain lay for months among the breakers of the rock-bound coast of Ireland, and yet finally floated off unscathed, to render good service to the British government as a transport in time of need. The grand experiment of the cyclopean order of naval architecture is, however, in preparation, and shortly to be put to the test. The Great Eastern Steam-navigation Company have for some time been engaged in building an iron ship upon a scale, both as regards absolute dimensions and strength of material, that will at once change all its leviathan predecessors into pigmies.

This future monarch of the leviathans is now so far advanced towards completion, being within thirteen months of its watery berth, that it has become a very

interesting object. It stands upon the banks of the Thames, at Millwall, just opposite to Deptford. About 120 feet of the hull and deck are entirely finished in the midships; 200 feet more each way, towards the bows and stern, have a skeleton of inner plates attached together, so that the general form and character of the structure are thus far obvious to the eye; but other seventy feet of both bows and stern remain yet baseless fabrics' of vision that the imagination has to fill up. Nevertheless, when the observer approaches the monster ark from the Horseferry Road, to which he is conveyed by the Blackwall Railway, he sees before him a huge wall surmounted by sheers and other mechanical appliances for raising heavy weights, and stretching to a greater extent from left to right than the entire length of Ely Cathedral, being also within about ten feet of the height of that building! The first thought that arises to the mind on the contemplation of this vast structure is-if even it be happily floated upon the wave, how is its course ever to be controlled and directed? What human arm or arms will ever be able to wield and guide it? Who shall put the bridle round its mighty neck, and govern its movements with the rein?

Upon coming up close to the side of this iron monster on the strand, where it is growing under its laws of iron crystallisation, the ruling idea of its design at once becomes apparent. Along the middle portion, a slightly curved surface of iron, made up of plates studded with rivet-heads, is presented to the eye. This is all smooth and neat, and finished off with paint of a pale leaden hue. Further on, the shell is ragged and rusty, and without its external layer. This ship differs from all other vessels hitherto contrived, in having a double hull. There is an inner shell of plate-iron, two feet nine inches from the outer one, and these two shells are connected by strong intermediate ribs of iron, two feet nine inches broad and sixty feet long. In the lower part of the hull these ribs are two feet nine inches apart; but they are further asunder in the higher portion of the vessel, where less strength is required. The hull is thus really of a cellular construction. It is composed of a very great number of long chambers, wide enough for men to creep along in, between the inner and outer walls. These chambers are each bounded above and below by the connecting ribs, within and without by the double walls of the hull, and at each end by cross partitions, to be more particularly alluded to presently. If, in consequence of any accident, the outer shell of the vessel were broken or torn when the ship is afloat, the water would rush in, and find itself in one of these chambers; but it would then come into contact with another shell of equal strength with the external one, which would effectually exclude it from the true interior of the vessel. There could be no access to this interior unless the strong ribs and the second inner shell were also broken away; even then, the water would still find itself entangled in new arrangements, intended to limit its powers of mischief, and no very great harm would result. But these arrangements will be best understood by glancing at them from another point of view.

Access to the upper-deck is gained by means of a broad wooden staircase, which doubles again and again upon itself, until the highest part of the iron shell is reached. A broad level platform of iron, exactly like the outer surface of the hull, and formed of rivetstudded plates, then extends beneath the feet. This platform is double, or cellular, like the hull already described. At the two extremities, fore and aft, the inner shell is seen extending further than the outer one, with some of its plates hanging fringe-like and shaking over the vacant abyss, just temporarily attached to their neighbours by nuts and screws, which are soon to be replaced by rivets. This deck has been planned to be of such strength, that if it were taken

up by its two extremities when it is completed, and the entire weight the vessel is ever to carry were hung upon its middle, it would sustain the whole by its unaided powers of resistance. The cellular hull is carried only about eight feet above what will be the water-line when the completed vessel is immersed and heavily laden. Then it runs up as a single hull, until it is attached above to the cellular deck.

The upper-deck runs flush and clear from stem to stern for a breadth of about twenty feet on either side, thus affording two magnificent promenades for the passengers just within the bulwarks. These promenades will be each rather more than the eighth part of a mile long. Four turns up and down either of them would exceed a mile by 256 feet. The vessel, when launched, will be more than as long again as the steam-ship Great Britain; it will be nearly three times as long as the line-of-battle ship the Duke of Wellington, and nearly as long again as the Himalaya; eighty-eight feet more would make it as long again as the Persia, at present the longest vessel afloat upon the

ocean.

Between the two side-promenades of the deck there are several quadrangular openings, edged with low iron bulwarks, and looking down into the deep recesses of the structure. These openings are forty-two feet wide, and nearly sixty feet long, and there are deck-gangways, connecting the side-promenades, between each of them. Into these spaces the sky-lights of the large saloons for passengers will ultimately be fixed. Now, the observer on the deck looks down through them into the great cavities of the vessel, and vast indeed these cavities are. There are strong partition-walls of iron passing across from side to side of the long interior, at intervals of sixty feet. In one case only, the partitions are eighty feet asunder. These walls are constructed of strong iron plates riveted together so as to be entirely water-tight everywhere from top to bottom. The spaces between now look like large square tanks or wells. Into each of these tanks, an upper and a lower saloon, sixty or eighty feet long, forty feet wide, and as lofty as the most commodious drawing-room, are to be inserted, with a complete appendage of kitchens, offices, and bed-cabins ranging along their sides. Every one of these systems of saloons and cabins will be entirely distinct from all its neighbours, and there will be no access from one to the other, excepting by openings situated high up near the deck. In this way, even if the water should effect an entrance into one of these compartments, it will remain imprisoned there, and all the other compartments will be as safe as before, and sufficient in themselves to keep the vessel floating above the waves. In all, there will be eleven distinct water-tight compartments in the ship, besides the almost innumerable water-tight chambers contained between the shells of the hull and of the decks. It is the transverse partition-walls of the interior that constitute, by their continuance, the ends of these sixty feet long chambers. By means of all these partitions, small and large, with the addition of horizontal decks planted wherever floors and ceilings are required, the structure will be made inconceivably strong, just as the bones of animals are by the cancellated arrangement of their substance. Since the double-chambered deck alone has strength enough to bear the entire weight ever to be trusted in the ship, if it were used as a simple beam, it is anticipated that this multiplication of internal braces and supports will be sufficient to enable the hollow hull to resist, as a whole, very much more violence, and much heavier strains, than the elements can ever inflict upon it. But besides this, the water-tight character of the numerous compartments would necessitate that several of them should be broken into simultaneously before the vessel could be sunk in the sea. The fair probability is, that the gigantic ship might be stranded upon rocks amidst

breakers for months, without being broken up; and that if, after such adversity, it were ultimately floated off into deep water, with holes even through several parts of its double hull, it would still swim with only a foot or two of deeper immersion, a yet navigable and manageable whole. It could not sink to the bottom until water enough had found its way into the internal chambers to make the entire mass a little heavier than an equal bulk of the saline fluid.

The huge iron fabric now stands upon 1500 piles driven deep into the loose ground. It is reared up from these three or four feet by a forest of wooden pillars, which allow workmen and curious visitors to pass on among them by stooping. Upon arriving under the centre of the mass, it is obvious that there is no keel, properly so called: a flat keel-plate of iron, about two feet wide and one inch thick, runs the entire length from stem to stern. This is the base upon which all the rest is reared, plates and girders alike. It is the stoutest planking in the structure. The bottom and sides ascending immediately from this are made of plates three-quarters of an inch thick; the thinnest plates, planted above, where less strain will fall, are half an inch thick; the underlying girders and beams being of course considerably more massive. The entire fabric is built from below upwards, by adding plank and girder to plank and girder. The several parts are attached together by rivets about an inch in diameter. When the observer stands outside during the riveting-work, he sees all at once a little flaming star appear on the iron side; it is a blazing rivet, almost at a white heat, thrust through from within. Immediately two sturdy workmen attack it with alternate strokes of the hammer, until the red projecting peg is changed into a flat black button-a transmutation that is effected in less than a minute. Every distinct plate is moulded beforehand to the exact shape required by the situation it is to occupy. In a large shed close by, a full-sized section of one-half of the midships' hull is sketched out by lines upon the floor, and other lines of different colours are traced within the space included in these, in apparently inextricable confusion. These are all, however, gauges for the dimensions of the several parts of the structure, laid down upon mathematical principles, and perfectly intelligible to the initiated. Wooden moulds are first prepared from these gauges, and then the iron plates and ribs are accurately fashioned to correspond with the moulds.

THE GREAT EASTERN AFLOAT.

Some very curious considerations arise out of the gigantic proportions of this leviathan vessel. All the centre and upper part of the interior space will be appropriated to the accommodation of passengers; and the lower part, beneath the water-line, and the fore and aft parts, will be given up to machinery and merchandise. Besides the working-crew of 400 men, there will be room for 4000 passengers-800 first class in regard to accommodation, 2000 second class, and the rest third class. In addition to this, there will be space for 5000 tons of merchandise, and stowage for enough coal to steam the ponderous ship, with her live and dead freight, entirely round the world. When it is launched-an operation which will be effected sideways, and probably under the agency of hydraulic power-with all its working parts fixed in position, it will weigh 12,000 tons, and will sink eighteen feet into the water. When its entire burden is placed in it, it will weigh about 27,000 tons, and, wonderful to say, on account of its extraordinary length, it will not then draw more than twenty-eight feet of water, which does not exceed the draught of the heaviest line-of-battle ships by more than a couple of feet. Its tonnage will nevertheless be more than six times greater than that of the heaviest line-of-battle ship of the British fleet.