Abstract
The Steamship President THE Annual Register for 1839 records that on October 7, “Several thousand persons went to Lime-house to view the immense steamship the President, built by Messrs. Curling and Young for the British and American Steam Navigation Co., and intended to run between New York and London. The President is of greater power and tonnage than the British Queen (the former being of 600 horse power and 2,336 tons, the latter 500 horse power and 2,016 tons), and was built in the same dock, and not upon a slip; so that she had to be floated out of dock, and not launched. At high tide, however, which happened to be a low tide, there was not enough water to float her, and she remained fast aground aft. Mrs. Laird, wife of the African explorer and projector of Atlantic navigation by great steamships, performed the ceremony of christening, amidst the cheers of the multitudes on the banks and on the river. . . . On Monday the 9th, the water being sufficient, the President was floated into the river and towed to Blackwall.”
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Science News a Century Ago. Nature 144, 643–644 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144643a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144643a0