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Fumps in American Ships.
[Book II.
of Magalhanes’ fleet, put into St. Jago on her return in 1522, a boat wassent ashore for provisions, and “some negroes to assist in working thepumps, many of the ship’s Company being sick, and the leaks having in-oreased.”* In the account of Frobisher’s third voyage in search of anorth-west passage in 1578, the Anne Francis having run on a sunkenrock, “they had above two thousand strokes together at the pumpe be-fore they could make their shippe free of the water, so sore she wasbrused.” b In the voyage of some English vessels to the north the fol-lowing year, one was nearly lost; “by mischance the shippe was bilgedon the grapnell of the Pavos, [another vessel] whereby the Company[owners] had sustained great losses, if the chiefest part of their goodshad not been layde into the Pavos; for notwithstanding their pumpingwith three pumpes, heaving out water with buckets and all the best shiftsthey could make, the shippe was hälfe full of water ere the leake couldbe found and stopt.” 8 In November 1599, two large Portuguese shipsarrived at Terceira in distress, having been separated in a storm, duringwhich they “were forced to use all their pumpes” to keep afloat. d Ta-vernier sailed in 1652, from the Persian Grulf to Maslipatan in a largeship belonging to the king of Golconda;—a storm arose and became soviolent that the water “ rowl’d in from stem to Stern, and the mischiefwas that our pumpes were nought.” Fortunately several bales of leatherwere on board, of which they made bags or buckets, “which being letdown from the masts with pulleys through certain great holes which werecut in the deck, drew up a vast quantity of water.” 8
Wooden pumps, with and without metallic cylinders and boxes, are stillcommon in European and American ships of war. The latter with fewexceptions have no other. A description of those on board the North Ca-rolina , a ship of the line, may possibly interest some readers. This ves-sel has six. They are large trees bored out and lined with lead. Theyreach from the surface of the main gun deck to the well, a distance oftwenty-three feet. A brass cylinder, 2 feet 9 inches long and 9 inchesbore, in which the piston Works, is let into the upper part of each;The piston rods (of iron) pass through the centre of a guide piece, se-cured over every pump, and are thus kept from deviating from a perpen-dicular position. They are connected to the levers by slings as in thecommon brass lifting pump and some others. The levers are double, andshaped like those of fire-eijtgines, staves of wood being slipped throughthe rings whenever the pumps are worked. Each lever works two pumps;and the length of stroke, or the distance through which the pistons movein the cylinders, is 14 inches. The pistons or upper boxes are of brasswith butterfly valves; the band of leather round each is secured byscrews, (in place of nails in the wooden box.)
‘ Necessity is the mother of inventionthe truth of this proverb is oftenillustrated by seamen, especially as regards the raising of water. Nu-merous are the instances in which they have relieved themselves fromsituations so alarming as to paralyze the inventive faculties of mostother men; either by devices to Work the ordinary pumps whentheir strength was exhausted, or in producing s.ubstitutes for them whenworn out. A singulär example of the latter is mentioned by Dampier,which may be of Service to sailors. It is attributed to a people who arenot remarkable for their contributions to the useful arts, and on that account