§ EARL DE LA WARRI wish to ask the noble Lord who represents the Admiralty in your Lordships' House, Whether he does not think it would have been possible, by the aid of an iron-clad, to have raised the "Eurydice" the day after the accident, to such an extent that she might have been towed into shallow water?
LORD ELPHINSTONEI have heard it said that had the means to which the noble Lord refers been adopted the Eurydice would have been raised ere now; but perhaps the best way I can answer the Question is by illustration of the very small power of even one of our very largest iron-clads to move a weight at rest. Take, for example, the Hercules, a ship of 7,200 tons, with a nominal horse-power of 1,200, but capable of working up to between 7,000 or 8,000. She would be unable to move a body at rest of more than from 40 to 50 tons. This enormous mass, exerting a force of 7,000 or 8,000 horse-power, would be, as it were, anchored by a weight of between 40 and 50 tons; and so in the case of the Eurydice. When she sank she represented a weight in iron and stores of from 150 to 180 tons, and that was, therefore, the weight that had to be moved. Suppose, for the sake of argument, they had been able to get the ends of her two lower cables up the day after she sank—the breaking strain of each cable is equal to 64 tons—they would, therefore, have been together unequal to a strain of more than 120 tons—the weight to be moved being from 150 to 1156 180 tons. It is perfectly clear, therefore, that, even supposing they had been able to get at the cables, which has not been the case, they would have been quite insufficient to move the ship in the way suggested.