122 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
the same month by the Alaska. The latter was the ‘crack ship’ at 
that time, and was 500 ft. long, the former was 440 ft. long, and they 
were considered enormous ships. The City of Rome was 560 it., 
but was not so fast as the Alaska. They were all single-screw ships. 
A 400-footer in the early ‘eighties was considered to be a very large ship ; 
indeed, I think I am correct in saying that such a ship was not provided 
for in the scantling tables of the Classification Societies, and required 
special consideration. 
My Liverpool experience convinced me that midship erections such 
as long bridges must have the decks plated so as to resist the stresses 
which would inevitably go up there, so when I took charge at Leven 
Shipyard in 1883 I carried out that idea. But in 1887 in a 400-ft. 
ship of high speed I found myself short of weight, so to avoid plating 
the bridge deck I cut it in two purposely and fitted an expansion 
joint. Whether this was the first time it had been done I do not know, 
but in that ship it was successful. In the early years of this century I 
saw such expansion joints in large Atlantic liners, but as the result of 
experience and further consideration it is now held that that expedient 
is not the proper solution of the problem and that nothing but plating 
the decks and ample strengthening of long superstructures isin order. But 
I shall not go into such details, as we are to have a paper on the subject 
by Mr. Foster King. 
Dimensions: Mr. King read a paper at Philadelphia, U.S.A., in 1912, 
in which he divided ships into three groups : 
(A) Atlantic passenger-ships (the longest ships). 
(B) Passenger-ships on all other routes. 
(D) Cargo-ships. 
He obtained from the owners and registry books particulars of thousands of 
ships, and plotted them on diagrams on a base of years and with lengths of 
ships as ordinates. From these diagrams he concluded that the growth of 
‘the largest ships in the world’ might be fairly represented by straight 
lines in each group ; that Group A ships grew at the rate of 66 ft. in ten 
years, and Group B 50 ft. in ten years. He observed, however, that after 
1897, special vessels in A—viz. the fast Atlantic ferry—grew much more 
rapidly, at the rate of 150 ft. in ten years. For cargo-vessels D the rate-of 
growth was about 30 ft. in ten years. ; 
Taking Mr. King’s A line, in 1875 the longest ship was about 475 ft., 
while, owing to the above-mentioned offshoot of the Atlantic ferry-boats, 
in as it was round 900 ft. The Mayestic, the present longest ship, is 
915.5 ft. 
Reading from the B line, in1875 the longest ship wasround about 425 ft. 
In 1912 it should have been 610 ft., but was actually 570, and he remarks in 
explanation that ‘ one of the usual pauses was occurring.’ The Oronsay, 
on the Australian trade, is the present longest B-line boat at 633.6 ft. 
The Empress of Canada, on the Pacific, is 627 ft. long. 
As to cargo-ships—general traders—in 1875 a 3000 dead-weight 
carrier was a large ship; the more usual size was 2000-2500 tons. Now, 
7000 to 8000 is the ordinary size, 10,000 is not uncommon, and many 
exceed that latter dead-weight. 
In dealing with the growth in breadth of ships, Mr. King remarks that 
about 1875 the fashion in passenger-ships was about ten beams to Jength, — 
