Page:The Development of Navies During the Last Half-Century.djvu/260

 and fitted with direct-acting engines by Fawcett capable of working up to 378 nominal horse power. We have no available record of what her real horse power was, but she probably at her best indicated nearly three times her nominal. Her boilers were loaded to what was then considered the ample pressure of 8 lbs. on the square inch. She was in commission from the 9th of August 1846 to the 28th of September 1849. During this time she steamed 64,477 nautical miles, and got over 4392 under sail alone. Her average daily steaming was 186.62 knots, and her fires were alight during 483 days. Her total consumption of coal was 8121 tons, her average distance steamed per ton of coal 7.9 knots, and her average consumption per hour 19.5 cwt. After service in India and China she returned to England by Cape Horn, thus making the circuit of the globe and establishing a 'record' for herself.

A vessel which must not be passed over among the celebrated paddlers is the 'Banshee,' engined by Messrs Penn, which managed to steam from Holyhead to Kingstown, a distance of 55 nautical miles, in three and a half hours on several occasions, this being at the rate of 15.7 knots, then unprecedented. She was afterwards deprived of half her boiler power, to increase her coal carrying capacity, and sent to the Mediterranean to do duty as a despatch vessel, for which service she could always be relied upon as a 12-knot steamer.

Paddle-wheel men-of-war were at one lime the most