Page:The fairy tales of science.djvu/373

 and back, 12,000 tons at the very least will be required, yet such is the capacity of the Leviathan for fuel, that this immense quantity can be stowed away in the coal-bunkers without encroaching at all on the space set apart for machinery, cargo, passengers, and crew.

The great ship will carry twenty little ships, all fitted with masts and sails complete. In addition to these, two small screw-steamers will hang astern abaft the paddle-boxes, each of which will be 100 feet long, 16 feet beam, 120 tons burthen, and 40-horse power. These will be raised and lowered by auxiliary steam-engines, and will be used for landing and embarking passengers, with their luggage. They will look like toy-steamers when suspended at the sides of the sea monster, though they will be considerably larger than most of the above-bridge Thames steamers.

The passenger-arrangements are on a corresponding scale with everything else. There are ample means for accommodating 4000 guests in this floating city, besides the crew of 400. The iron partitions we have already described divide the interior capacity of the hull into separate compartments or boxes; and into each box we may suppose a large house to be let down. A clever writer has thus filled up in imagination five of these great boxes:—"If we were to take the row of houses belonging to Mivart's, and drop them down one gulf; take Farrance's, and drop it down a second; take