[Illustration: LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF THE “GREAT EASTERN.”] “Once again, how will the winds and the waves affect this leviathan mass, when they chance to be in their surly and ungenial moods? A connected mass of 27,000 tons is not as easily heaved as a cork or a cockle-shell; but the storm-winds and the storm-waves of the open ocean have a tremendous power. What will they do then, with this stupendous morsel, when they have it fairly within their clutches? The heaviest hurricane-wind blows with a force that would act upon a square foot of resisting surface with a pressure equivalent to a weight of 40 lb. Such a wind could only heel the leviathan with its full load out of the perpendicular to the extent of six inches even if it struck it quite on the side! The waves of a fresh sea run about 100 feet long. Those of a moderate sea are 300 feet long. Of such the leviathan would take two at once, and would preserve the while almost an even keel. The highest storm-waves ever seen on the wide and deep ocean are only 28 feet high from trough to crest, and 600 feet long from trough to trough. Of course the leviathan would still take two at a time, when the crest of one was near to the bow, and the crest of the other near to the stern. Under the most unfavourable circumstances such waves would not disturb the horizontal equilibrium of the deck line to the extent of more than five degrees.... The captain of the leviathan will have a cabin for himself, situated conveniently near the centre of his domains, on the mid-deck, and between the huge paddle-boxes. But placed here like a spider lurking in the centre of its web with outstretched attentive feelers, he will have to use his telescope to see what is going on at the bows and stern; and the old contrivance for issuing orders, the speaking trumpet, will be altogether out of date and valueless in his hands. His voice, even with this aid, would hardly be heard half-way to the stern. He will have to signal his directions to his officers by semaphore arms by day and by coloured lamps by night. He will also have electric-telegraphs ramifying to the engine-rooms, and to other places to which it may be necessary that his instructions should be instantaneously communicated. The compasses will be placed aloft on a staging reared forty feet above the deck, to remove them from disturbing influences inherent in the vast masses of iron below; and it is proposed that strong shadows of the needles shall be cast from a tube, so that the steersman may at once watch these shadows, and so follow exactly the movements of the compasses as they traverse. It is also proposed to carry a perpetual moonlight diffused around the ship, emanated from an electric light planted on the foremast head.