FIREPROOF PASSENGER STEAMER. 173 



in the hands of the executive officers of the ship, as it clearly should be. To 

 this division of responsibility electricity lends itself in a marvelous way. 



We are well aware that marine authorities have questioned the reliability 

 of the control of the propelling power from a distance, but this, scientifically 

 and practically, has long passed beyond the matter of argument. To give 

 an illustration familiar to everyone, reference is made to the subway trains 

 in which motors coupled to ten separate cars distributed throughout a train 

 and aggregating a very large horse-power are handled from one point, being 

 started, stopped and reversed, working in unison and with much greater 

 reliability than has ever been attained between the pilot-house of a steamship 

 and the engine-room. 



It should further be stated that every part of the power plant — that is, 

 for the production, utilization and control of the power — is of standard 

 manufacture, and that, in the control of the motors, exactly the same appli- 

 ances will be used as are now in use to control railway motors. 



Granting the broad application of electric generation and propulsion 

 to steamships, we have before us new conditions altogether unexpected and 

 surprising. In the Grand Republic, the steamer in comparison with which 

 the plans herewith are submitted, we have a vessel in use for not more than 

 four months in the year. For the remaining eight months we have an invest- 

 ment totally incapable of any use. In the power plant of the steamer here 

 shown, we have a generating plant of 3,000 horse-power which can deliver 

 itself to any location on navigable water and deliver 3,000 horse-power in 

 electric energy utilizable for any possible purpose, either for light or power, 

 and if this system were to be applied to a freight steamer, it is equally 

 apparent that instead of the power plant of the steamer being useless when 

 in port, all the power would be available for handling cargo or for any other 

 purpose. 



From the propelling of individual boats by means of electricity generated 

 on them, it is only one step further to provide a vessel not only generating 

 electric power for its own propulsion but also for the propulsion of other 

 vessels, and while it is not intended to take up this matter in this paper, 

 those interested in the general subject of power as appHed to marine trans- 

 portation are referred to a paper published in International Marine Engi- 

 neering under date of January and February, 1908. 



The design of the machinery for the vessel whose plans are here pre- 

 sented has been treated from the viewpoint of the central station, the control 

 of the motors driving the three shafts being in the pilot-house, making the 

 load on the leads to the motors (corresponding to the load on the feeders) 

 as independent of the generating apparatus as in a power station. The 



