A New Adventure.

Maddie Hatter, intrepid investigator and fashion reporter, has a new adventure coming out!

Check out this teaser trailer.
RE-RELEASE 2021!


Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

More info on Maddie here at Jayne Barnard's blog:
Clockworks and Crime

Graphs, straight edges, and math oh my!

An interesting "Pie in the Sky Project"

Back in the days before the availability of ubiquitous computing capabilities complex mathematical relationships and rules of thumb were often calculated using graphical computations known as Nomograms or Abacs.

These graphs were laid out in a way that using a straightedge one could determine the result of often complex multi-variable calculations. They were used in everything from engineering and navigation to accounting. They were also used in business and government where there was only a vague mathematical relationship between inputs.

This one for example, is used for "quantitative risk assessment of food to guide sampling/analysis for the purposes of official control of food and to support the enforcement of food safety/consumer protection law."

 

This series of posts by Ron Doerfler describes the process by which such graphs are generated:
http://myreckonings.com/…/the-art-of-nomography-i-geometri…/

So what is the Pie in the Sky Project here?

• Why not create our own Steampunk Nomograms?
• What kind of Nomograms would our Steampunk Mad Scientists use?
• Would they be complex and arcanely illuminated or simple and elegant?
• Would they be kept in massive bound books chained in our laboratories or kept in our pockets in miniature books with fold out pages?
• Would they have pockets in the covers to hold exotic curves and circular slide rules or would they have a simple straightedge that would also work as a bookmark.
• What kinds or equations and nomograms would a Dr Frankenstein use?
• What about an Airship Engineer? 
• What would the Abac book of an Aetherwave operator look like?

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

P.S. This book from 1918 has an amazing amount of info and examples of interesting nomograms. The math isn't too bad but it does need some concentration to follow :-)
Graphical and Mechanical Computation

P.P.S Lots of good Nomography tools and some interesting examples here:
Society for the Conservation and Advancement of Nomography

Time flies when you are having fun!

Three years ago today I started blogging here.

It has been a great ride and I hope you have found it as interesting and fascinating as I have.

Thanks for coming along for the ride, lots more to come!

As always...

Keep your sightglass full your firebox trimmed and your water iced!
KJ

An Airship Technical Gold Mine

Previously I reviewed one of the only books ever published on real airship design.
The author Charles P. Burgess worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the NACA.

During the heyday of the great rigid airships, in the first third of the 20th century, the NACA commissioned and collected a series of technical studies, papers and technological reviews of airship design. These papers show just how seriously rigid airships were taken as the future of heavy lift and long distance aircraft.

Recently NASA (the direct descendant of the NACA) has made scans of these reports and analyses available through the Internet Archive.

If you are curious check out this simple search:

Airship Technical Gold Mine 

Here you will find yellowed type written reports, with hand drawn graphs, diagrams, plans, and old photographs, documenting in detailed analyses the state of the art in Airship design in 20's and 30's.

The files are available in many formats including plain text, colour PDFs, html, epub and other ebook formats.

The titles alone make this old Flight Engineer drool!

Here are some examples to "wet yer whistle":

THE PRESENT STATUS OF AIRSHIP CONSTRUCTION, ESPECIALLY OF AIRSHIP FRAMING CONSTRUCTION
By Hans Ebner
1938





FULL-SCALE TURNING CHARACTERISTICS OF THE U.S.S. LOS ANGELES
By F. L. THOMPSON

CONTRIBUTION TO THE TECHNIQUE OF LANDING LARGE AIRSHIPS
By 0. Krell
PART I
Part II is here
From Zei'tschrift f'.r FLigteohnik und. Motorluftschiffahrt
September 28, 1928

RECENT RESEARCHES IN AIRSHIP CONSTRUCTION I
Forces of Flow on a Moving Airship and the Effect of he Control Surfaces
By H. Naatz
1928

Many of these reports are translations of German reports. The Germans were the acknowledged world leaders in Airship design at the time. The first report listed includes a German paper written in 1933 while the Hindenburg was under construction and before the loss of the Akron, which is noted in a footnote. The full report was not translated and acquired by the NACA till 1938.

Since these reports were typewritten they often contain typos, to me these little errors bring these fairly dry technical reports alive. In a way they show them as being human made. Prepared to record important information not just display elegant formatting.

For anyone interested in the technical details of real airship designs these reports are truly a gold mine of information.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Here are some sample pages of the kinds of details included in these reports:

 

 

Steampark March!

A wonderful group from England.

Definitely worth checking out.

COPPERFIELD ENSEMBLE

Here is a taste.

Enjoy




Keep your sightglass full your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

A wonderful documentary.

I found this linked on Steampunk Canada.
Enjoy this look into the Steampunk world.



Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed, and your water iced.
KJ

In case anyone was wondering, heh.

I have had an amazingly busy September.

Calgary hosted the first annual Beakerhead event this year and the various Steampunk groups I belong to were trying to get organized to attend.  We actually had a pretty good turnout and had a great time.

Beakerhead is a five day festival celebrating Science, Technology, Engineering and Art. With street displays, interactive exhibits, a mini Maker Faire and one hell of a lot of partying.

One shouldn't drive one's couch when under the influence of Absinthe.

 Next year will be even bigger and we are planning to make sure that Steampunk is a big part of it!
If you are interested in helping out check out the Steampunk Arts and Sciences Society Facebook page.

Keep your sghtglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Found this posted on the Book of Faces today.

How to Recognize a Steampunk
By  Austin Sirkin
at Steampunk R & D 

Steampunks don't always walk around wearing their full Steampunk finery, so how can you tell whether someone is a Steampunk or not? Here's a tongue-in-cheek (and yet 100% true!) guide to help you determine whether someone you know is a Steampunk.
They may be a Steampunk if....

• ...their eyes light up whenever someone throws something metal away.
• ...their everyday clothes are several decades out of date.
• ...they adopt an English accent for no discernible reason.
• ...they wear goggles but don't actually need them.
• ...all of their plastic items have been spray-painted to look like brass.
• ...they own more than one hat that isn't a baseball cap or a fedora.
• ...many of their stories start with "I was in the workshop and..."
• ...they eschew a wristwatch in favor of a pocket watch.
• ...they use words like "eschew".
• ...they own more broken than working clocks.
• ...they own more books than movies.
• .......most of which were written more than a hundred years ago.
• ...they take pride in how old their belongings are.
• ...they own more than one set of cufflinks.
• ...they know what a cravat and/or bustle is.
• ......and the difference between a gear and a cog.
• ...their Nerf guns are all in various stages of being painted and/or taken apart.
• ...their ears perk up whenever someone says the word "esteem".
• ...they have a crush on Nikola Tesla.
• ......and they get angry whenever someone mentions Thomas Edison.
• ...their wardrobe consists entirely of shades of brown.
• ......and yet will tell you that brown isn't the only color in Steampunk.
• ...they use a smart phone, but it has a wood or leather case.
• ...they visit their local thrift store more often than their local department store.
• ...they've picked up something someone has thrown away and said, "Oh, I could make ___ out of this..."
• ...they visit the hardware or sewing supply store more often than the grocery store.
• ...they work odd historical facts into every conversation.
• ...they used to drink coffee, but now exclusively drink tea instead.
• ...even their underwear is historically accurate.
• ......or only their underwear is historically accurate.
• .........or their underwear is so concealing that it would qualify as outerwear.
• ...when they refer to The Wild, Wild West without the word "bad", they mean the TV show from 1965, and not the 1999 movie.
• ......and likewise when they refer to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, they mean the comic books and not the movie.
• ...when they wear Steampunk clothes, they insist that it's an "outfit, not a costume".
• ...they carry a cane, but don't need it.
• ...they own a parasol, and don't refer to it as an umbrella, or worse as a "sunbrella".
• ...they don't like anise, but cultivated a taste for absinthe.
• ......or they drink vodka screwdrivers just for the name.
• .........or they've learned to appreciate the taste of gin.
• ...it never occurred to them to wear their corset under their clothes.
• ...they are convinced that they alone know the true definition of Steampunk.

If more than five of these apply, the person in question is probably a Steampunk. If more than ten of these apply, the person in question is definitely a Steampunk.
If more than twenty of these apply, the person in question doesn't need a list for other people to know they're Steampunk, because they ooze it out of every pore!

=============================================
Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

My favourite artist...

Vadim Voitekhovitch has a moody and atmospheric style that I like to use to illustrate the Steampunk worlds I build in my head.

I have used his images to illustrate my Airship Design posts, mainly because his airships are both whimsical and apparently practical.  The scenes are serene but complex. The environments are rich and detailed without being chaotic.

You can see them in detail here at the Steampunk Art of *Voitv

This is a world I could quite happily inhabit!

Enjoy.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Steam power in action.

This steam powered wooden box factory has been in use since 1897.

Wonderful video of the whole process.  Lots of belts and gears working together.



Enjoy

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Wonderful imagery!

I came upon this image quite by accident and thought I would share it.

A wonderfully atmospheric piece by Gilles Tran.

http://www.emptykingdom.com/featured/gilles-tran/

You can see many more images by this talented digital artist at http://www.emptykingdom.com/featured/gilles-tran/ and at his website Oyonale

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Airships for sale!

This catalog was produced by the Vickers company in Britain in 1920.

What is so interesting about this catalog is that it obviously assumes the existence of a commercial market for airships of all types from small scout and/or personal ones to large military, cargo, and passenger ones. 

This was definitely wishful thinking on the part of the Vickers company in light of sdubsequent history but it is still fascinating to peruse.

Who wouldn't want one of these little gems for a quick Sunday afternoon flight through the countryside.

Small Non-Rigid Airships

This Type of Small Airship did very successful service during the War as a Coastal Scout

These Airships are very suitable for Naval Scouting and Coast Patrol, and fitted with a Special Type of Car are suitable for Passenger Carrying on a small scale, and also for private or sporting use.

Designed Sizes:

                                                   No. 1         No. 2
Gross Gas Capacity ..    ..    Cubic Feet         70,000       100,000
                               Cubic Metres        1,960         2,800

Length ..    ..    ..    ..    Feet                  145           170
                               Metres                 44            52

Maximum diameter   ..    ..    Feet                   30            36
                               Metres                9.2            11

Maximum Speed      ..    ..    Miles per hour         48            55
                               Kilometres per hour    77          88.5

Cruising Speed     ..    ..    Miles per hour         40            45
                               Kilometres per hour    64          72.5

Length of Flight at Cruising   Miles                 200           300
 Speed, allowing 30% Reserve   Kilometres            322           483
 Fuel

No. of Passengers carried                              4             6

The Cars are of the Boat type, provided with comfortable Seating accommodation.  

-------

This section on Rigid Airships, thought soon to be available, is what dreams are made of. 
Imagine ordering one from a catalog!

------- 

Rigid Airships for Commercial Services

We advocate the use of Rigid Airships for all Aerial Services necessitating a non-stop run of more than 1,000 miles, and in view of the great developments pending in the use of Airships for Commercial Transport, we have prepared designs for Commercial Rigid Airships of 1,250,000 and 3,500,000 cubic feet capacity

(See Plates Nos. 2 and 3) Designed Sizes:

                                                 No. 1         No. 2
Gross Gas Capacity ..    ..    Cubic Feet      1,250,000     3,500,000
                               Cubic Metres       35,000        98,000

Length ..    ..    ..    ..    Feet                  535           800
                               Metres                163           244

Maximum diameter and width     Feet                   70           100
                               Metres               21.3          30.5

Maximum Speed      ..    ..    Miles per hour         65            75
                               Kilometres per hour   105           121

Cruising Speed     ..    ..    Miles per hour         55            60
                               Kilometres per hour  88.5          96.5

Suitable non-stop Distance     Miles               1,000         4,000
                               Kilometres          1,609         6,436

Weight of Passengers and       Tons                    6            15
 Freight carried for above     Kilogrammes         6,096        15,241
 distance

No. of Passengers accommodated                        50           100

These Passenger Airships would be provided with commodious Living and Sleeping Quarters for the Passengers, with all conveniences necessary to ensure the greatest possible comfort and pleasure of travel.

Provision would be made to enable the Airships to be moored out to Mooring Towers of Vickers' Patent Type.

COMPLETE DESIGNS AND SPECIFICATIONS SUBMITTED TO MEET
THE SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS OF ANY PROPOSED SERVICE

This design for a first class passenger ship is interesting because the passenger accommodations were on the top of the hull!

The full size version of this image is HERE.
 
You can peruse the entire catalog online here:
The Vickers Airship Catalog

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Brilliant!

Found this while writing my post on Pinterest boards.

A nice howto on making a stovepipe style top hat.  The full image can be found here but this is a just a taste to whet yer whistle!

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

In more ways than one!

Pinterest is an amazing thing.

I use it to collect Steampunk costume photos the latest of which appear on the sidebar of this blog.

However as Boromir once said...

Like YouTube before it one can easily loose many an hour wandering the beautiful, interesting, funny and scary labyrinth that is Pinterest.

Each board is a collection of "pins" usually photos or images with links to the sources.

My Pinterest Board is mostly for Steampunk costumes, but there are many many boards that also include gadgets, artwork, jewelery, tattoos, buildings and other exotic bits of Steampunk wonderfulness.

There are also Pinterest boards dedicated to historical subjects like real Victorian clothing and artifacts, history, and period photos.

One of my favourite boards is Brenda{SteamCircus.com} which has over 10,000 pins organized into 73 subject groups.
 
Wandering around here one can easily get lost and spend a very pleasant hour or two.

Please check it out when you have some time to spend!

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

A   possible source for Jules Verne's Nautilus.

Found this article at the fantastic Vernian Era website. I have previously discussed another set of pages from this site in my School of Nautili post.   Michael Crisafulli has collected some wondeful information on various technologies that existed at the time Jules Verne was writing. Many of these were experimental and considered unworkable but they could easily have been used as inspiration by Verne.

A good example of such a technology was the Cigar Ships that the Winans Family of Baltimore, Maryland, built between 1858 and 1866.

 From the introduction:

he cigar ships were designed and built by the Winans family, successful railway engineers from Baltimore, Maryland who moved into marine engineering with enthusiasm and great expenditures of their family wealth, but less success.  Their radical marine design concept included an ultra-streamlined spindle-shaped hull with minimum superstructure.

The Winans constructed at least four ships between 1858 and 1866.  Two of these attracted considerable public attention as well as skepticism and outright criticism from the technical establishment.  Ross Winans and his sons were, first and foremost, engineers experimenting with innovative concepts.  The innovative technology would certainly have attracted Jules Verne's attention.  He may well have seen one of the boats sailing or berthed in England.  Some of their innovations were adopted for surface ships in the twentieth century, and many of the pioneer submarines built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century resembled them.  Later in the twentieth century, aerodynamicists rediscovered the benefits of the spindle.

The site discusses the history of these odd vessels and many of the design problems that the Winans had to overcome.

The final ship built using this design was the yacht Ross Winans built in 1866.
From the website:

The Winans launched their final effort in 1866 in London.  The Ross Winans was 256 feet long with the same 16-foot diameter as their first boat and displaced about 400 tons.  It did have a nearly conventional superstructure atop the hull amidships, 130 feet long and ten feet wide, tapering to a point at each end.  Inverting the first design, it was driven by a 22-foot diameter propeller at each end.  These nine-bladed props were powered by an engine room amidships.   The Ross Winans underwent trials in the Solent channel but made no more than one or two coastal voyages, never going to sea in earnest. 

The woodcut at right, from The Illustrated London News, 3 Mar 1866, shows the stern-first launching of the Ross Winans.  The propeller mounts are visible, but the propellers have not yet been installed.

 
Highly recommended reading this!

Check out the full article at: The Winans Cigar Ships

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

The wonders of modern telegraphy stop

This interesting document is a style guide for composing telegrams.

It was written in 1928 by Nelson E Ross and covers the then common practices associated with making sure that telegrams were being used efficiently.

"HOW TO WRITE TELEGRAMS PROPERLY"

 There is a lot of good information here on how to write telegrams efficiently and concisely. This was important since transmission of a telegram was charged by the word. There is also some good information on ways encrypt the transmission to save costs and insure security.

Here are some interesting examples:

How to Save Words -- Naturally, there is a right way and a wrong way of wording telegrams. The right way is economical, the wrong way, wasteful. If the telegram is packed full of unnecessary words, words which might be omitted without impairing the sense of the message, the sender has been guilty of economic waste. Not only has he failed to add anything to his message, but he has slowed it up by increasing the time necessary to transmit it. He added to the volume of traffic from a personal and financial point of view, he has been wasteful because he has spent more for his telegram than was necessary. In the other extreme, he may have omitted words necessary to the sense, thus sacrificing clearness in his eagerness to save a few cents.

If you are telegraphing the home folks that you expect to arrive on the 20th for that long planned visit, spell it out "twentieth." Two words are saved. The telegraph companies have nothing to sell but service. They undertake to transmit your message from point to point, speedily, accurately and secretly. The cheapest way of handling that message is invariably the safest way, and your cooperation is welcomed by the companies. When groups of figures are spelled out, the chance of an error in transmission is reduced to a minimum.

This apparently insignificant fact often is disregarded by users of the telegraph. Considered from the point of view of economy alone, the question of figures in telegrams is interesting. Any group of figures can be written out so that from two to three words are saved each time the group is used. Take for example the expression "one million." Written "one million" It counts two words. Written 1,000,000, the total count is seven words, and if the commas are to be sent also, the count is nine.
The suffixes "th," "rd," or "nd" appended to figures are counted as additional words. When the figures are spelled out, as in "fourth," "third," or "second," the count is automatically reduced.

How to Write Figures -- The following table illustrates the principles just set forth:
1st (two words) -- first (one word)
2nd (two words) -- second (one word)
3rd (two words) -- third (one word)
100 (three words) -- one hundred (two words)
1000 (four words) -- one thousand (two words)
1,0000 (five words) -- ten thousand (two words) etc

How Unnecessary Words Creep In -- To paraphrase, "Brevity is the soul of telegraphy." Except perhaps in the case of a long Night Letter, the practice of adding such words as "Dear Madam." or "Dear Sir," at the beginning of the message, is obsolete. This likewise applies to such phrases as "Yours very truly," "Yours sincerely," etc., commonly used in closing a letter. These words are charged for, and so accustomed is the public to telegraphic brevity, that their use often produces amusement rather than the expression of formality which the sender desired.
When telegrams are received without the well known title of "Mr." do not censure the sender as lacking in respect. To insure accuracy in transmission the title is omitted lest through inadvertence it should be confused with "Mrs." or "Miss." "Esquire" also is dropped in transmission.

An entertaining and useful little pamphlet that can help you add some telegraphic style to your next email.

KEEP YOUR SIGHTGLASS FULL YOUR FIREBOX TRIMMED AND YOUR WATER ICED STOP

Uniforms!

This site has an amazing amount of British Victorian era uniforms available.
Definitely worth checking out.
I have not purchased anything from them so I would be interested in haring from anybody who has.
Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

 The Victorian   Strollers

For Queen and Empire

Uniforms and Accoutrements of The British Army

throughout the Empire of Queen Victoria.

Britain and the Colonies

Awesome!

The fourth annual Victoria Steam Expo will be held in Victoria British Columbia in a couple of weeks.

This is Canada's premiere Steampunk event check it out!

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Victoria Steam Expo IV

Scavenger-hunt in Darkened Alleys, Secret Lodges, The Martial Art of Sherlock Holmes, Steampunk Beer Launch, Burlesque Diva Lydia DeCarllo, and More!

The premiere steampunk event in the Dominion of Canada is back for a fourth year in Victoria, British Columbia. Where previous years have been encased in palaces of cut-crystal and gleaming brass, this year it's the gritty back-alleys of the 19th century colonial capital which are brought to the fore – after-hours corners and upstairs dives where the paths of explorers and inventors cross with those of airship scoundrels & duplicitous courtesans.
The weekend is wrapped around Alleyways: An Alternative Reality Game / scavenger hunt specially designed for this event  – sending the braver of attendees through brick alleys, half-forgotten nooks, and opulent lodges of secret societies in pursuit of treasure-unlocking puzzle-clues.  At the Exposition's old-brick 1909 headquarters there will be merchants, outfitters, panels, artists and authors, speakers and performers, history lections, and craft activities for families.

FRIDAY:

The Weekend kicks off with Friday Night Reception at the 1885 Bard & Banker, with a history lecture of Victoria's seedy underbelly presented by Chris Adams of Ghostly Walks. Hear the real story of Her Majesty's colonial capital with tales of murder, madness, arson and opium.

SATURDAY:

On Saturday, we switch venues to the 1909 old brick Victoria Event Centre: set in the dark heart of a labyrinth of storied alleys of the capital's Old Town. Speakers, panelists, merchants, booksellers, artists and artisans will all be on hand to display, discuss and trade in wares.  Saturday morning will see the briefing of the scavenger hunt, and teams will be presented with their initial "rabbit holes."
We are proud to announce there will be an exhibition of Bartitsu – the  authentic 19th century mixed martial art of Sherlock Holmes – presented by Vancouver's David McCormick of Academy Duello.
Saturday evening Longwood Brewery presents the 19+ Steampunk Cabaret Burlesque, a costume ball and raucous dance suited for this year's theme of discretion, decadence, deviousness & debauchery. Vancouver Burlesque star Lydia DeCarllo will tease and titillate, followed by the riotous Folk Glam Gypsy Marching Band Bucan Bucan – in celebration of the launch of Vancouver Island's very own Steampunk Beer.

SUNDAY:

More presentations, final round and prizes for the scavenger hunt, family craft activities and the fashion show!

This is a fascinating look at the development of the newspaper industry in Canada.

The article is included in the online version of The Canadian Encyclopedia.

The first part of this detailed article is included below to give you a taste.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

http://thecanadianenc...

Canada's first newspaper, John Bushell's Halifax Gazette, began publication in 1752. Like most colonial newspapers in North America, it was an adjunct of a commercial printing operation. Moreover, it was dependent on the printing and patronage largesse of the colonial government. This reliance on revenues from sources other than readers - from governments, political parties and ADVERTISING - would remain a characteristic of Canadian newspapers.


The First Newspapers
There were no newspapers in New France, in part because of the opposition of French officialdom to the establishment of printing presses in the colony. The British Conquest, and the termination of the SEVEN YEARS' WAR in 1763, brought a trickle of printers from the American colonies. In 1764, 2 Philadelphia printers, William Brown and Thomas Gilmore, began the bilingual Quebec Gazette at Québec City. In 1785 Fleury Mesplet, a French printer who had been jailed because of his attempts to persuade Québec to join the American Revolution, started publication of the Montreal Gazette (now the oldest continuing newspaper in the country).

In 1793, under the auspices of Upper Canada's first governor, a Québec printer started the Upper Canada Gazette at Newark [Niagara-on-the-Lake], the first newspaper in what is now Ontario. Like the Halifax Gazette, these first papers - operating in colonies where populations were low - remained utterly dependent upon government patronage. In Upper Canada, William Lyon MACKENZIE pressed the Assembly to subsidize the province's first paper mill, in part to ensure a source of newsprint for his journal - a telling example that the close relationship between newspapers and government patronage held even for a democratic firebrand.

The development of legislative assemblies in British North America encouraged political factions. At the same time, particularly in Halifax, Saint John, Montréal, Kingston and York [Toronto], a merchant class, with an interest both in reading commercial intelligence and in advertising, was growing. Weekly newspapers sprouted up, allied with political movements and the various mercantile and agricultural interests.

In Lower Canada, the Québec City Mercury (1805) and the Montréal Herald (1811) became mouthpieces for the province's English-speaking merchants, while Le Canadien (1806) and La Minerve (1826) spoke for the rising French Canadian professional interests.

In Upper Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie used his Colonial Advocate (1824) to argue the cause of Reformers in general and farmers in particular against the dominant professional and mercantile groups. In the Maritimes, newspapers such as Joseph HOWE'S Novascotian (1824) of Halifax also worked to challenge the authority of colonial oligarchies.

Newspapers, Politics and the State
By the early decades of the 19th century, most newspapers were allied with either the Reform (now Liberal) or Conservative Party. These early newspapers were by no means simple tools of the parties they claimed to support but rather were organs of specific leaders or factions within the parties. Thus the Toronto Globe (1844) was a personal organ of its publisher, the Reform politician George BROWN. The Toronto Mail (1872), while set up to act as spokesman for the whole Conservative Party, was quickly captured by the dominant faction led by John A. MACDONALD.

Moreover, it was not unusual for an organ to deviate from the party line. The Mail, for example, broke with the Macdonald Conservatives in the 1880s, forcing the party to set up the Empire in 1887. The relative independence of newspapers from political parties and governments varied from place to place. But in general, newspapers had more potential for independence from parties as their revenues from circulation and advertising grew.

In part, the politicization of newspapers continued because readers demanded partisanship. POLITICS was a serious matter in 19th-century Canada; newspapers were expected to have views. Thus occurred the phenomenon of the 2-newspaper town. By 1870 every town large enough to support one newspaper supported 2 - one Liberal and one Conservative. As well, newspapers have never cut themselves off completely from government patronage. Since 1867 the federal government has subsidized newspaper publishers by granting them special postal rates. Canada's first international wire service, Canadian Associated Press (1903), was subsidized by the federal government, as was the domestic news co-operative, CANADIAN PRESS, during the initial years after its founding in 1917.

The Rise of Advertising
While partisanship remained, the financial dependence of newspapers on governments and political parties did decline throughout the 19th century. The reason has to do with the economics of newspaper publishing and with overall economic development. Newspapers faced high overhead costs, ie, newspapers were forced to incur the same initial outlays for equipment, typesetting and editorial matter whether they printed one copy or a run of 10 000. In the 1860s, when daily circulations were usually under 5000, these overhead costs were covered by party or government patronage. But as population expanded and literacy increased, publishers were able to spread these overhead costs over more readers. In addition, as a newspaper's circulation increased, merchants became more interested in it as an advertising medium. With productive capacity increasing in all industries, advertising - as a means of persuading people to buy the massive volume of goods being produced - became crucial.

Early advertisers were wholesalers trying to catch the attention of other merchants, but by the 1880s retail advertising, aimed at a mass market, was dominant. By 1900 consumers were flooded with newspaper advertisements calling upon them to purchase such things as soap, patent medicines or electric belts. Big-city dailies were earning between 70% and 80% of their revenues from advertising.

Technological developments in the newspaper industry, and in the economy as a whole, hastened the trend to large-circulation, advertising-based newspapers. The spread of the TELEGRAPH during the 1850s and the laying of the Atlantic cable in 1866 increased the availability of world news to newspapers, but at the same time increased their overhead costs of production. By the 1880s, high-speed web presses and stereotyping allowed newspapers to expand their circulations in order to earn more revenue to cover these costs. In 1876 the combined circulation of daily newspapers in the 9 major urban centres was 113,000. Seven years later, it had more than doubled. Railway building, from the mid-19th century onwards, put more of the population within reach of daily and weekly newspapers. By the 1890s, typecasting machines such as the linotype were allowing daily newspapers to expand their size from the standard 4-, 8- or 12-page format to 32 or 48 pages. This greatly increased the amount of advertising space.

The Nautilus Design

I recently found a PDF document of an analysis of Jules Verne's iconic submarine the Nautilus.

In a previous post, A School of Nautili, I linked to a catalog of designs based on Verne's descriptions in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

This analysis by Stuart K Wier entitled simply "The Design of Jules Verne’s Submarine Nautilus" examines not only the details of the design but also some ideas of why Verne designed the Nautilus as he did and what some potential influences and inspirations he may have had.

Examining the original illustrations done for Verne's book is fascinating, since the illustrators were friends and acquaintances of Verne they had discussed the details with him before creating the illustrations. The paper includes many of these images which show the interiors of the Nautilus in all her glory.
 
I highly recommend this paper for anyone interested in the details of the Nautilus.

There are some snippets of the paper below to give you a taste of the style of this excellent paper.

Enjoy
Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Introduction

In 1867 when Jules Verne was beginning to plan a novel about an undersea voyage, he and his brother Paul traveled to the United States on board the Great Eastern. The Great Eastern was an enormous vessel for its time, 213 meters (698feet) long, and 23 meters (75 feet) wide, in fact the largest vessel afloat, and it incorporated some of the newest features of marine architecture. It had a double iron hull, sails, steam engines, paddle wheels, and a propeller 7.3 meters (24 feet) in diameter. Verne showed and described his keen interest in the ship, and noted details of its design, construction, and operation. Thinking of an advanced undersea vessel, he found himself living on the the most advanced ship of his time. In the United States Verne saw other new technology, such as the large and fast Hudson River steamboats. This was a period of delight in rapid technical progress.


For the past century the submarine has played an important role in naval affairs, and more recently submersibles have become valuable in exploration of the oceans. Yet a fictional submarine, conceived decades before real submarines took up seagoing duties, remains a candidate for the most renowned: Jules Verne's Nautilus, from his novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

Jules Verne is rightly regarded as a prophet of many of the inventions which characterized twentieth century life. The novels of Jules Verne are as well known for their technical innovations as for their plots of journeys to exotic locations. The submarine Nautilus and its enigmatic captain Nemo are among Verne's most famous creations. Even some who have not read Verne know that the Nautilus foreshadowed large modern submarines.

Wier's analysis of the propulsion system is interesting

“The dynamic power of my engines is nearly infinite”:
Power, Propulsion, and Control

Despite a popular notion that Verne's Nautilus had some sort of futuristic power supply, such as atomic power, Verne based his technology on what was known in his day. The power supply is chemical batteries. Verne realized that the actual batteries of his day were far from adequate, as batteries remain today, but suggested they might be greatly improved. Nemo says he uses “large and powerful” Bunsen batteries rather than Ruhmkorff batteries which are less powerful. Nemo has improved the Bunsen battery by using elements of a sodium zinc amalgam in place of zinc alone, which Nemo claims doubles the “electromotive force” of the batteries (what we call today the voltage). Perhaps Verne was unaware of the explosive property of sodium in contact with water.
Nemo extracts sodium from sea water on a remote island, where the process is fueled with sea coal. The new sodium would recharge Verne's hypothetical batteries, which seem to last for months between charges.