. . . Visited the Great Eastern this afternoon. Visitors seem few. She is an enormity. But the bulk of the ship impresses me less than that of the titanic engines. I dived into their depths by the help of certain slippery cobweb iron ladders. The huge cylinders and piston rods are awful to behold, even in repose. This big ship, with all her apparatus of engines, telegraphs, corrected compasses, and what not, is the incarnation (or inferration) of a good deal of thought, study, and experiment by quite a number of generations. Such a result is not developed out of the coracle of our barelegged, woad-stained ancestors, tempore Julius Caesar, by a single step. . . .
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 37-8
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