286 REPORT—1862. 
of the ‘ Mooltan,’ a new vessel belonging to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam 
Navigation Company, with returns of a voyage from Southampton to Alex- 
andria and back, showing the results of the performance of this vessel, as 
compared with some other vessels in the same service. It is to be regretted 
that the Peninsular and Oriental Company found they were unable to give a 
continuance of the reports of the performances of the vessels composing their 
fleet of ships this year in time for the publication of this Report. The Com- 
mittee have reason to believe that next year full reports of the performances 
of these vessels for this and next year will be forthcoming. 
The Pacific Royal Mail Company have furnished your Committee with the 
dimensions and abstract of the performances of their last additions to their 
fleet (see Appendix). The particulars of the other vessels have been given 
in previous Reports. 
It is worthy of remark that the vessels belonging to this Company fitted 
with double-cylinder expansion engines, specially noticed by your Committee 
in previous Reports as remarkable for their economy, have continued to per- 
form in the same economical manner; and, under the circumstances, it has 
not been considered necessary to furnish a continuation of the logs previously 
yen. 
2 The City of Dublin Company’s Returns for the past year are omitted ; 
and your Committee regret that the log of the ‘Munster,’ and the results 
attained by working out her performances,—although the calculations have 
involved considerable trouble to the Committee in their preparation,—have 
also to be omitted. 
Your Committee have received from the Royal African Mail Company an 
abstract of the log of the screw steamship ‘McGregor Laird’ on her first 
voyage from Liverpool to Madeira, and the particulars of the vessel and 
her machinery. To the performances of this ship your Committee call 
especial attention, on account of the great economy exhibited in the con- 
sumption of fuel. 
Foreign Mail Service —Your Committee would call attention to the returns 
supplied of the performances of the steamships belonging to the Austrian 
Lloyds’ Steamship Company; and although they are to some extent incom- 
plete (which arises from no systematic recording having previously been 
adopted), this, it is promised, will be remedied in future by the adoption of 
the forms supplied by your Committee. 
The Mercantile Marine Service —Your Committee have been occupied prin- 
cipally in effecting arrangements by which a more thorough and extended 
organization of the means of obtaining returns of the performances of mer- 
cantile steamships employed in ocean navigation can be secured, and also in 
making personal application to many of the largest steamship-owners at the 
principal ports of Great Britain. They have succeeded in enlisting the active 
cooperation of many proprietors of steamships. In some cases the owners 
of mercantile marine ships, upon being called on by members of this Com- 
mittee, at once requested their superintending engineers to adopt the “‘ forms 
of returns ”’ prepared by this Committee, and in other cases the result of such 
personal communication has been the suggestions of modifications in the 
“ forms ;” but, in all instances, or nearly so, the engineers haye undertaken 
that, in future, a more perfect and systematic recording of the performance 
at sea shall be adopted, and that the results shall be regularly placed at the 
disposal of your Committee. 
