3-016-941 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The French Transatlantic Company's steam-packet Washington, 1864. 'This large and beautiful paddle-wheel steamer, the first of a line of mail-packets, subsidised by the Imperial Government of France, to run between Havre and New York, has just been completed by Messrs. Scott and Co., Cartsdyke, Greenock...She is the property of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique...The engines are supplied with steam from four large boilers, two forward and two abaft the engines...There are also two small boilers for supplying two donkey-engines with steam when the other boilers are not working. The large boilers are all cased in malleable iron plates two inches apart from the boilers, the plates being so constructed that any part can be removed without taking down the whole casing. The Washington will have accommodation for 330 first-class passengers, hold capacity for 1000 tons of goods, and be able to stow 1500 tons of coal in her bunkers. Before her departure she went on a short cruise, in the course of which she ran sixteen statute miles in 61 minutes'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.