The Coming of Steam and Steel : 311 



An open or suppressed feud developed between the deck officers and 

 the "black gang," or engineering crew, and phases of this hostility 

 have gone echoing down the ages. Some few liners appeared that 

 retained the clipper bow and the fine lines of a good sailing vessel 

 and that still had the advantages of engine propulsion. Then gradu- 

 ally the masts and sails shrank in size and in proportion; later the 

 yards and sails were removed and stored, to be called on only in an 

 emergency. The clipper bow was replaced by the straight stem. 



It is remarkable how long the notion of using sail on steamers 

 hung on. I can remember, as a small boy, crossing in an old liner that 

 still carried provisions for setting sail in case of an emergency. An old 

 seaman, who had grown up in the sailing ships, proudly showed me 

 the spars and the sail locker that were his special responsibility. 



At the end of the century the steam vessel had not only developed 

 into the modern liner, it had also assumed a score of other useful 

 forms. We have already referred to the small seagoing tramp. In addi- 

 tion, there was the small freighter that also carried passengers; there 

 was the channel steamer; the ferry boat; the river steamer; the tanker 

 and many other variants. 



History runs its course. At the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury the steam engine had appeared that displaced sail before the 

 century was over. At the beginning of the twentieth century electric- 

 ity, turbine, Diesel appeared at sea; they have already almost displaced 

 the steam engine. 



The century opened with a golden age — the era of speed, elegance, 

 luxury. Goods flowed and people traveled freely across international 

 boundaries and across the ocean. There was room for all, everything 

 was improving, even steerage services, which now accounted for an 

 important part of the revenues of the giant liners racing for the Blue 

 Ribbon of the Atlantic. 



