Those were the days when the engineer was supreme. He worked with a free hand; and these two men set out to build a ship which should be not only the largest and strongest, but also the safest and most unsinkable vessel afloat. How they succeeded is shown by the fact, that on one of her voyages to New York, the _Great Eastern_ ran over some submerged rocks off Montauk Point, Long Island, and tore two great rents in her outer skin, whose aggregate area was equivalent to a rupture 10 feet wide and 80 feet long. In spite of this damage, which was probably greater in total area than that suffered by the _Titanic_, the ship came safely to New York under her own steam. [Illustration: Courtesy of Holmes' "Ancient and Modern Ships" GREAT EASTERN, 1858; THE MOST COMPLETELY PROTECTED PASSENGER SHIP EVER BUILT] There can be no doubt that in undertaking to build a ship of the then unprecedented length of 692 feet, the designers were as much concerned with the question of her strength as with that of her ability to keep afloat in case of under-water damage. But it so happens that the very forms of construction which conduce to strength are favourable also to flotation--a fact which renders all the more reasonable the demand that, in all future passenger-carrying steamships, a return shall be made to the non-sinkable construction of this remarkable ship of over fifty years ago. Let it not be supposed, however, that Brunel and Russell were insensible to the risks of foundering through under-water damage, or that the fully protected buoyancy of this vessel was accidental rather than the result of careful planning. For in the technical descriptions of the ship, it is stated that the inner skin was carried forward right up to the bow, as a protection against "collision with an iceberg," and it is further stated that the combination of longitudinal and transverse bulkheads afforded such complete subdivision, that "several compartments might be opened to the sea without endangering the ship." So remarkable in every respect was the _Great Eastern_, so admirable a model is she of safe construction, even for the naval architect of to-day, that a somewhat extended description of the construction of the vessel will doubtless be welcome.