THE PROPELLING MACHINERY OF THE U. S. S. LEVIATHAN. 



By Ernest H. B. Anderson, Esq., Member. 



[Read at the twenty-seventh general meeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, held 



in New York, November 13 and 14, 1919.] 



This vessel is the second of three large Atlantic liners which the Hamburg- 

 American Steamship Company ordered to be built in Germany during 191 1. 



The first to be completed was the Imperator, and she made her maiden voyage 

 to New York in 19 13. 



The original name of the Leviathan was the Vaterland, and at the outbreak 

 of the war in 19 14 this vessel had made three round trips between Hamburg and 

 New York and had completed the outboard run of her fourth voyage. 



The third vessel was not launched at the outbreak of the war, and it is highly 

 improbable that she will be ready for service for some considerable time. 



The Leviathan is the largest vessel ever completed, and without doubt her de- 

 signers and builders have created a structure that contains many novel and inter- 

 esting features, most of which have been developed largely from observation and 

 experience gained by studying the designs of the earlier Atlantic liners of this class, 

 namely, the Lusitania, Mauretania and Olympic. 



The table on the following page gives the principal dimensions of the vessel, and 

 also comparisons with other vessels of similar type. 



It is not my purpose to attempt to describe the interior deck arrangements of 

 the vessel, but during my first visit to this ship I was struck by the fact that the 

 large public rooms and social halls were entirely free of casings, and they had the 

 appearance of being more spacious than those of other vessels. The explanation of 

 this can be seen by referring to Fig. i, Plate 95, which shows the arrangement of 

 Deck "B" in the Leviathan and Imperator. 



In the former, the two sets of uptakes, or the steel casings that carry the 

 gases from the boiler furnaces, are not led to the center of the ship until they have 

 passed through the boat deck, where they join into a breeches piece at the base of 

 the smokestack. 



In the latter, the uptakes all join up to the funnel casings at the lower decks 

 and then pass up through the various decks in the middle of the vessel. 



The third or the aft funnel does not connect with the boilers in either of the 

 vessels, its purpose being to ventilate the engine-rooms, and in both vessels the 

 casing opens into the engine-room through one trunk at the center line of the vessel. 



