THE MASTER WORKER 



This first ocean liner equipped with the turbine en- 

 gine is called the Victorian. She is a ship five hundred 

 and forty feet long and sixty feet wide, carrying fifteen 

 hundred passengers. The Victorian had shown a speed 

 of 19 J knots an hour on her trial trip, and it had been 

 hoped that she would break the transatlantic record. 

 On her first trip, however, she encountered adverse 

 winds and seas, and did not attain great speed. Her 

 performance was, however, considered entirely satisfac- 

 tory and creditable. 



In the ensuing half-decade several large ships were 

 equipped with engines of the same type, the most fa- 

 mous of these being the Cunard liners, Carmania, Lusi- 

 tania, and Mauretania. The two last-named ships are 

 sister craft, and they are the largest boats of any kind 

 hitherto constructed. The Lusitania was first launched 

 and she entered immediately upon a record-breaking 

 career, only to be surpassed within a few months by 

 the Mauretania, which soon acquired all records for 

 speed and endurance. 



Fuller details as to the performance of these vessels 

 will be found in another place. Here we are of course 

 concerned with the Parsons turbine engine itself rather 

 than with its applications. 



This turbine engine constitutes the first really impor- 

 tant departure from the old-type steam engine, thus 

 realizing the dream of the seventeenth-century Italian, 

 Branca, to which reference was made above. Mr. 

 Parsons' elaboration of the idea developed a good deal 

 of complexity as regards the number of parts involved, 

 yet his engine is of the utmost simplicity in principle. 



