having very nearly fifteen feet in the clear. The kitchens, pantries,
and sculleries are all on the same extensive scale, and fitted with all
the large culinary requisites of first-class hotels. The ice-house
holds upwards of 100 tons of ice; and the lofty wine-vaults--for such in
fact they are--contain wine enough to form a good freight for an Oporto
trader.

_Miscellanea_.--In addition to the boats of the _Great Eastern_ (twenty
in number), she carries two small screw-steamers, each 100 feet long, 16
feet broad, 120 tons burden, and 40 horse-power, suspended aft of the
paddle-boxes.

As the captain's voice could not be heard half-way to the bow, even with
the aid of the ancient speaking-trumpet, that instrument is supplanted
by _semaphore_ signals by day, and _coloured_ lamps by night; the
_electric telegraph_ is also used in connection with the engine-rooms.
There are ten _anchors_, four of them being Trotman's patent, weighing
seven tons each. The _cables_ are each 400 fathoms long, and their
united weight is 100 tons. The _tonnage_ of the _Great Eastern_ is
18,500 tons register, and 22,500 tons builders' measurement. The _crew_
at first consisted of thirteen officers, seventeen engineers, a
sailing-master, and a purser, four hundred men, and two or three
surgeons, all under the command of the late Captain W. Harrison,
(formerly of the Cunard line).

The _launch_ of this leviathan was a most formidable undertaking, and
was accomplished by means of powerful hydraulic rams, which propelled
the vessel down the launching "ways." The ship rested on two gigantic
cradles, and was forced sideways down the inclined plane, until she
floated on the river. By a complication of ingenious contrivances the
great ship was regulated in her descent so as to proceed slowly and
regularly down the ways. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to
launch her, and several of the hydraulic rams broke down ere she floated
on the bosom of Old Father Thames; and the cost of this operation alone
is said to have been nearly 100,000 pounds.

The _trial of the engines_, both screw and paddle, took place for the
first time on the 8th of August 1859, when the completion of the vessel
was celebrated by a banquet on board. The first movement of the
gigantic cranks and cylinders of the paddle engines was made precisely
at half-past one, when the great masses slowly rose and fell as
noiselessly as the engines of a Greenwich boat, but exer