Isambard Kingdom Brunel Famous Engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, 39, made William Patterson & Son build at Bristol the new vessel of the Great Western Steamship Company for the purpose of transatlantic packet service. She is named Great Britain. Her commissioning was delayed by the solution of high-level engineering issues. She displays two innovative, we may say bold, features : an iron hull and a screw propeller. She was launched two years ago, and has just started to op

Henry Wimshurt Henry Wimshurt, 34, designed and also built Archimedes, a 240-ton three-masted schooner launched last year, which this year has been fitted with a machinery supplied by Mssrs Rennie, consisting in a flue boiler feeding twin vertical 30-hp engines acting on the same crankshaft, itself extended by a shaft driving a whole 360° screw in a single thread. This propeller is retractable so as to reduce its drag when the ship intends to sail instead of steaming. It is