192 AN ELECTRICALLY PROPELLED 



try to produce boats, not only to meet the requirements of the law, but which would 

 be in advance of the law, and be as safe in every respect as they could reasonably 

 be made. I would like our naval architects to consider more seriously the installa- 

 tion of sprinkler systems, both in the quarters for passengers and also in the cargo 

 space. The architects and engineers of our buildings have taken up this question 

 very thoroughly, and there is a great deal of data on the subject that can be obtained, 

 and I think it would pay the shipowners, as well as the naval architects and builders, 

 to investigate carefully this question of sprinkler systems. 



Mr. Wm. H. Fi^etcher: — Are you familiar with the conditions on the Lakes in 

 regard to the passenger steamer service? 



Mr. McComb : — Somewhat, as I have been around that part of the country 

 a good deal. 



Mr. Wm. H. Fletcher : — Do you know what the fare is from Buffalo to Detroit? 



Mr. McComb : — I do not know the fare, but I do know that these vessels are 

 successfully run in competition with the railroads. 



Mr. Wm. H. Fletcher: — I believe the large passenger steamers on the 

 Lakes which have been referred to, get about double the fare that the Hudson 

 River steamers do for transporting passengers practically the same distance. 

 Therefore, in making comparisons, one must consider the existing conditions, and 

 the naval architect must consider the amount the owner can realize from the 

 operating standpoint in designing his vessel and in considering her equipment. 



Mr. Stevenson Taylor, President: — I naturally read with a great deal of inter- 

 est the paper prepared by Mr. Donnelly, and, preliminarily, I will express my belief 

 that we are greatly indebted to him for the preparation of that paper for, if it 

 has done nothing else, it has brought forth that which is most important in this 

 Society, namely, the discussion of the various phases of the business of naval 

 architecture and marine engineering. After hearing the remarks of one or two 

 of the speakers upon this paper I concluded not to add to the discussion, but Mr. 

 Wm. H. Fletcher has called upon me to state to you what happened some years 

 ago when the steamers Monmouth and Sandy Hook were compared to the steamer 

 New York. I cannot give you the exact figures, for it is many years ago, and I 

 can only give you the results from memory. 



The steamers Monmouth and Sandy Hook are well-known steamers, running 

 from New York to Sandy Hook, a distance of about twenty miles, and they only 

 run in the summer time. They were well known as very fast steamers, particularly 

 so as they came in competition, so far as speed is concerned, with no other fast 

 steamer. When we built the steamer New York for the Albany Day Line, we tried 

 to make the fastest steamer of the kind that had been built up to that time, and 

 having been connected for forty years out of the sixty years that Mr. Andrew 



