It was of course possible to use metal instead, and lead tubes had been used in some urban water supply systems going back to Roman times. Agricola (1556) suggested that valves be made of iron, copper, or brass, and lead ones may have been used on an early sixteenth-century wreck (Oertling 48).
Metal tubes were made at the time of RoF by taking a sheet whose width matched the desired circumference, rolling it so the edges met, and then soldering. Later, alternative processes were developed. One was to cast a section in a mold, draw the finished tube partway out, and then pour another section to join with the first (Oertling 56-7).
Metal tubes and pump parts were more durable than wooden one, so the objection to them related to cost. Lead use became significant in the early eighteenth century, copper and bronze in the late eighteenth century, and iron in the nineteenth century (60, 62, 72).
Pump utility. Besides being used to pump out bilge water, pumps could be used to distribute seawater for washing and firefighting. Common pumps were of limited value for firefighting, as their pressure was limited to the head pressure (weight of the column of water).
Bilge Alarm
If the ship is taking on water rapidly, the progressive reduction in freeboard will be obvious and "all hands to pumps" might well be the command. But a small leak might go undetected until a sailor has reason to descend to the orlop deck and finds himself knee-deep. For example, in the case of the wreck of the Protector in the Bay of Bengal in 1838, while the ship was sailing under bare poles in a gale near the reefs off the mouth of the river Hughly, a midshipman sent below for grog returned hurriedly to report that the hold was half full of water ("Narrative of the Wreck of the Ship 'Protector'", The Pilot, or Sailors Magazine 341 (Nov 1839)).
Once the presence of water was detected, the pump well could be "sounded" to determine how much water was in the hull, and this could be monitored periodically to determine whether the pump was holding its own with the leak. On one of Cook's voyages, at the change of shift, the new man inadvertently took the sounding at a different point, making it seem as though the leak had gained 16 or 18 inches in a short period of time and inspiring the men at the pump to "redouble their vigor" (Lamb, Exploration and Exchange: A South Seas Anthology, 1680-1900 (2000) 84).
Modern ships are equipped with bilge water level detectors that trigger an alarm or even turn on pumps automatically.
The simplest sensor design is probably a float that activates a switch when it climbs to a set point. While in modern systems, this is an electric switch, it is also possible to use mechanical linkages to create a visible or audible signal. Bilge water alarms are described in
Knight's 1884 American Mechanical Dictionary (1:281).
Water Ballast and Trim Tanks
The lower the center of gravity of the ship, the better its stability (although if too low, the ship may become too stiff, i.e., roll frequently and violently). Stability is a particularly acute problem for warships, since guns are more effectively if mounted high. But all ships find it advantageous to carry ballast—essentially, heavy materials such as lead or iron—deep in the hold in order to lower the center of gravity.
Merchant ships that carried heavy cargos in one direction and light cargos in the other had to take on ballast after discharging the heavy cargo and then dump the temporary ballast when replacing the light cargo with a new heavy load.
This was a particular problem for colliers (coal carriers). Their owners didn't like having to pay for the one-way ballast, and the port of origin didn't like the ballast dumps. A collier sailing from Newcastle to London with 250-400 tons of coal would have to pay one shilling per ton for the ballast in London, and another six pence per ton to put it on board. Then, back in Newcastle, it would pay one shilling per ton to the River Commissioners (a pollution charge?) and ten pence per ton for depositing it on the river side (Holmes, Ancient and Modern Ships 2:162). Another estimate related to a merchant steamer in the Mediterranean trade, carrying 200 tons of ballast. Loading and unloading it each voyage would cost 260 pounds (1877). The steamer itself cost 20,000 pounds and made four voyages a year (163).
In 1852, the SS John Bowes was equipped with some kind of "temporary appliance" for carrying water ballast—water being free and environmentally acceptable. This experiment was deemed successful, and the SS Samuel Laing (609 register tons) was built in 1854, equipped with fixed iron water ballast tanks. The ship was double-bottomed, and the tanks rested on the floor created by the top of the inner bottom (Holmes Fig. 75). The next step, taken in building the SS Rouen, was to make the tanks an integral part of the ship structure, i.e., the top of the tank was the inner bottom.
Naturally to fill and drain these water ballast tanks, pumps were necessary, but by the time they were introduced, pumps were steam-powered.
If the ship has, not a single ballast tank, but separate tanks fore and aft, then by pumping water forward or backward, the trim of the ship may be adjusted.
The principal disadvantage of water ballast is that water is less dense than iron (Sp. G. 7.87) or lead (Sp. g. 11.35). Hence, it is less efficient (on a per volume basis) at lowering the center of gravity.
****
Henry Scott Tuke painted a picture entitled, "All hands to the pumps!" We see five men frantically working the seesaw arms of a deck pump, with the discharge tube bringing water up from the bilge to the deck. But was it working fast enough to save the ship?
In the new time line, we are likely to have more efficient pumps at earlier times than in the old one, keeping at least some ships from foundering.
But keeping the ship dry is just one aspect of maintaining a healthy and safe environment on board. We will look at additional "ship's systems" in part 3.
****
To Be Continued . . .
Notes from The Buffer Zone: The Cusp of Worlds
By Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Yesterday, I spent an hour going through shelves and shelves of old books. I along with my husband, Dean Wesley Smith, happen to own those old books. Dean’s a well-known sf writer, but what most people don’t know about him is that he’s also a lifelong collector. When our dear friend, book dealer Bill Trojan, died in 2011, we inherited his collections as well.
We’ve sold some of his book collections, and are still selling items we find, like a pristine (still in the wrap) first-edition Neuromancer by William F. Gibson. You can find the sales information under Pop Culture Collectables on Facebook or popculturecollectableslc in eBay.
Why Pop Culture Collectables? It’s the name of the store Dean started in 2007, then sold in 2008, then bought back in 2014, filled with our collectibles, Bill’s collectibles, and collections that Dean and the store manager Billy Reese have found over the years. There’s an actual physical store, in Lincoln City, Oregon.
Now, we’re opening a second store (or rather, they are. I stay away from the collectibles), in a month or so, and a third might open in 2017, depending on how it all goes.
We finally have space to put out the books from Bill Trojan’s actual bookstore, not his collectibles. I was going through the shelves to pull any books of mine that might have gotten mixed in, along with books I need for some of my projects.
Bill’s store was an SF store, and he had a wide variety of SF books for sale, not just collectibles. Since I’m editing a series of projects that will use older sf stories, I want all of the sf anthologies I can find in my office. I went through, shelf by shelf, discovering books I remembered reading Way Back When, and books I’d never heard of.
I think I pulled fifty anthologies, with more to come in the future. The one sitting beside my computer has a yellow, red, and blue cover that looks modern. It looks modern because what’s old is new again, and retro-chic from the 1970s is in these days.
This book was published by Ballantine Books in 1974. I’d never seen the book before. It’s an anthology, edited by the great Leigh Brackett, called The Best of Planet Stories #1. Apparently there was no Best of Planet Stories #2
or #3 or any other Planet Stories collections that I can find.
Instead of losing this anthology in the big pile that I have to sort, I brought the anthology home because I want to read Brackett’s introduction. I’ve found, as I edited The Women of Futures Past, that I love reading Leigh Brackett’s essays on writing and science fiction. Her essays have an attitude (that’s also in her fiction)—a kind of “this is what we do” attitude that I really relate to.
As I went through the books, though, I found myself having a variety of emotional reactions. When I found a favorite title that I thought I had lost, like the paperback edition of Octavia Butler’s Kindred that I read over 35 years ago, I felt both joy at the discovery and whatever emotion I had felt when I read the book. I read Kindred at the right moment in my life: the book taught me how to use history, make it personal, and make it entertaining as well.
Other emotions that ran through me were much more complicated. I saw old books that I recalled seeing as new books on Bill’s store shelves. A lot of those writers have left the SF field entirely, names of the “hot young things” who had five years of a career and vanished. Then there are the writers who moved out of SF to other genres or, in the case of one writer, to comics.
I found books by friends who had been the hottest writers in the field in the late 1980s, who then couldn’t sell a word in the mid-1990s, went to Hollywood, made money, and have now returned to SF with a vengeance. They’re not hot any more, but they are good.
In my pile, I placed classic anthologies, books that changed the direction of the SF field—from Mirrorshades edited by Bruce Sterling to all of the Universe volumes edited by Terry Carr. I held anthologies I had heard of but never seen and anthologies I’d never heard of at all by editors whom Dean assures me were really famous in their day.
The entire history of the field, passing through my fingertips. It felt like touching the past.
The book industry has changed dramatically in my lifetime. Companies like Ballantine went from Mom-and-Pop companies run by the people who named them (like Ian and Betty Ballantine, whom I was lucky enough to meet) to imprints in a giant corporation to being long-vanished names.
That process is continuing this year, as Ace Books, which was a mainstay of my childhood, will be retired as a book imprint by Random Penguin or whatever that giant multimedia organization is calling its book arm these days. Roc Books went from being a brand-new imprint (that I made my first novel sale to!) to vanishing this year as well.
Names, receding into the past.
Yet, they’re not entirely gone. To write this column, I didn’t have to run to the shelves to double-check titles. I Googled the Planet Stories anthologies, so I could sound knowledgeable to y’all, and I looked up the correct title of Mirrorshades on Amazon—where I discovered I could order as many copies as I wanted, even though the book is officially out of print.
I like this new world. I like being able to get my hands on books I’d only heard about. But I also miss that moment of discovery—the moment when the book falls into my hands because I liked the cover or because I saw it in a spinner rack near the Mountain Dew in a grocery store, which was how I found Kindred.
There are no book spinner racks in most grocery stores (although one of our local stores has a spinner rack with used books—and a Bujold I’d never seen before), and what bookstores remain have very few mass market paperbacks which is still my preferred reading format.
I do read on my ereader, but I often forget what I have there. I like having the book on a shelf, nagging me, reminding me that I meant to read it right away.
Some of the books I pulled from our store shelves to take home are books that have been nagging me for decades. My books that got mixed in with Bill’s, books I plan to read Real Soon Now.
One of those emotions I mentioned was a bittersweet sense of confusion. When I was a child, I believed books were forever. I thought if a writer got published, that writer stayed published and everyone on the planet had a copy of that book. Books were the world to me. (They still are.)
But going through those shelves showed me just how quickly books and writers can disappear. Writers who started with me no longer write; their books are dusty pieces of history sitting on a shelf.
And yet…I can order a copy from anywhere. You can order a copy from my husband’s store with just a click of a mouse—or you will be able to once the books are priced in the next few weeks. And if you don’t get it from us, there are a thousand other booksellers around the world who probably have copies, and it takes very little effort for you to find the books.
The future—or rather, the present—has its good and bad points. It’s such a strange sensation to stand on the cusp of worlds, knowing that we’re crossing into the unknown.
I’d never had that feeling as clearly as I had it yesterday afternoon, going through dusty old books. So I thought I’d share.
This Issue’s Cover – 65
By Garrett W. Vance
This Issue's Cover - 65
Baseball Season Begins, 1637
A Dutch family who has relocated to Grantville find they must adjust to new traditions.
The source image is attributed to Quirijn van Brekelenkam, 1622-1679.
Several thoughtful readers have commented that they are enjoying the covers featuring juxtapositions of the new and old timelines, so I continued in that vein for this issue. I had intended the boy in his new uniform angling for Mom's grudging approval to be the focal point, but I think good ole' Dad checking out the bat ends up stealing the show. I hope you enjoy it, batter up!
Thanks, Garrett
The First Cavalry of the Cretaceous, Part Two: Lovebirds
By Garrett W. Vance
It was the morning after the big party, and Nate's head was still swimming from the crazy locoweed he had been smoking. He stumbled, bleary-eyed, out onto his front porch and looked at the colorful tipis dotting his meadow. Tipis…why are there tipis dotting my meadow? He was pretty sure they hadn't been there the night before. A few yards away a young man tending a cook fire waved and called out to him in the city folk dialect. Nate was pretty sure he was asking if he wanted breakfast, which he was quite sure he did not, at least not while his head was still performing a slow spin. He managed to wave back and say what he thought was, "No thank you."
"Well, it looks like I have company," he grumbled to himself and went back into his cabin to wash his face and find a shirt. He emerged again a bit later, still pretty dizzy, but slightly more presentable. Walking very carefully to prevent himself from tipping over, he arrived at the horse paddock, where he saw Ni-T'o and T'cumu watching the Raven Priestess ride Oklilinchi around in a circle at a canter. He stopped in his tracks, rubbed his eyes, and looked again to be sure. Yes, it was indeed the Raven Priestess riding Oklilinchi around in a circle at a canter. She was grinning like a kid on Christmas morning, waving merrily to him as she went around for another loop.
"This just keeps getting better." He took a deep breath before continuing on, trying to control his growing irritation.
Arriving at the gate, Ni-T'o and T'cumu both gave him looks that would make the most sheepish of sheep look as bold as a lion. Nate shook his head at them in mild disgust.
"What happened to keeping the horses secret, fellas?" he asked in an icy tone that sent shivers down his friend's spines even in the morning's growing heat.
Ni-T'o and T'cumu looked at each other, their bronze faces taking on a subtle shade of red. T'cumu shook his head, too embarrassed to speak, his pleading eyes asking his older cousin to do the talking. Ni-T'o nodded resignedly and took a deep breath.
"This morning in the village," he said in his ever-improving English, "the Raven Priestess came to us and asked us where you live." He paused, suffering under his friend’s withering gaze.
"Yes? So?"
"We tried to put her off, but she was very . . ." he searched for the word.
T'cumu chimed in to help, "Persistent!"
&nbs
p; "Very!" T'cumu concluded.
Nate had never seen these proud braves look so meek. He had to stop himself from chuckling as his initial anger turned to pity for his usually indomitable friends. He certainly understood what they had been up against; the Raven Priestess had a real talent for getting her way, and he was sure it was just as much brains as beauty behind it. He took a deep breath and said, "And so you led her, and all her people, here, where they have set up camp in my meadow."
The two of them nodded slowly like a couple of school kids getting a scolding from their teacher.
"You really couldn't just say no, could you?"
Ni-T'o spread his hands wide in an imploring gesture. "We tried to, but Nate, she is The Raven Priestess!"
Now Nate did start laughing, much to the relief of his friends. "Yes, she certainly is, and then some! And look, here she comes now, out for a Sunday ride on T'cumu's little cayuse! Isn't that nice?"
T'cumu and Ni-T'o were still embarrassed at having lost a test of wills to the strange and beautiful woman, who Nate was beginning to be sure possessed some kind of magical power over men, especially himself. Even so, they began laughing, too.
"T'cumu, how in Sam Hill did you get her up on that little beast, anyway? No one can come within a yard of her without taking a beating!" Nate asked, already knowing the answer as the Raven Priestess brought her mount to a halt in front of them just as if she'd been raised in the saddle. She tousled Oklilinchi's stiff mane while the formerly wild horse snuffled contentedly.
"I tried to warn her, but she walked right up to Oklilinchi and started to pet her! Oklilinchi loves her!" T'cumu told him, as he looked on with amazement.
Grantville Gazette, Volume 65 Page 17