Novel as was the construction of the ship, the mode devised for her launch was no less novel. As her immense length would render it impossible to launch her in the usual manner and by the force of her own gravity, she was built lengthwise to the river on cradles, which carried her upright and dispensed with “shores.” These cradles were made to travel on a double series of “ways,” each 120 feet in breadth, which were carried to low-water mark. The ways were 300 feet in length, with an incline of one in twelve. At the stem and stern were placed a powerful hydraulic ram to give the first start, and when she was once in motion her progress was to be kept up in the following manner. On the river-side four large lighters were moored in the tideway, and were to work with crabs and sheaves or pulleys upon chains, fastened to the vessel amidships. Two lighters were also moored at the stem and two at the stern of the vessel. The chains passing from the ship to these latter were returned again on shore, so as to be worked with a double purchase. Small stationary engines on land were to be used to haul on these, making a force available to pull the vessel off the shore. The calculations, as the event proved, were made on a false notion of the amount of friction to be overcome, and the attention of the engineer had been chiefly directed to prevent her dashing into the water with too great a speed. For this purpose two powerful drums had been constructed, to which the cradles were attached by enormous sheaves of cast iron, expressly cast for this purpose, and weighing five tons each. One sheave was fastened to each cradle, and wrought-iron chain cables of the largest size connected these with two other sheaves, each of which was screwed to the drum which was to pay out the chain and, in fact, regulate the whole operation. The axle of the drum was set in a frame of iron, while around its outer edge passed a band of iron, to work in the manner of a friction-clutch, or break. This, with the aid of strong iron levers twenty feet long, brought such a pressure to bear upon the discs of the drum as to entirely stop them in case of the chain being paid out too fast. Everything being thus prepared that human ingenuity could devise (as was supposed), the launch was fixed for the 3rd of November, 1857. On that day, although the sight-seeing public did not congregate in large numbers, and the scaffolding erected on many points was untenanted, yet there was a swarm of well-laden craft of all kinds on the river, and crowds on both its banks and around the yard. The engineers and men of science mustered strongly, not only from all parts of England, but from Germany, France, America, and Russia. The Comte de Paris, the Duke d’Aumale, the Siamese Ambassadors, and some of the Lords of the Admiralty, were the most conspicuous persons present.