average speed of 26"04 knots for a distance of a little over 

 1,200 knots, the steaming time being rather less than forty- 

 eight hours, and on at least two occasions she has exceeded 

 this speed on her ordinary trips across the Atlantic. The 

 regularity of speed maintained by the " Mauretania " on a 

 long sequence of consecutive passages is truly remarkable. 

 In February of last year, iti fourteen trans-Atlantic pas- 

 sages to and fro, made of course under varied weather 

 conditions, some of them against strong winds and high 

 seas, the average speed for the fifteen trips, approaching 

 45,000 sea miles in length, was 25|- knots. The trips made 

 by the " Lusitania " are run with similar regularity. 



Even these ships are shortly to be eclipsed by the two 

 White Star leviathans now being built by Messrs. Harland 

 and Wolff, in Belfast. The "Olympic" and the "Titanic" 

 will be 860 feet long with a registered tonnage of 45,000 

 tons and a displacement of 60,000 tons, they will be run 

 by a combination of turbine and reciprocating engines and 

 are expected to develop a speed of twenty-two knots, cross- 

 ing the Atlantic in seven days. The carrying capacity of 

 these great liners will exceed that of any vessel now afloat 

 by at least one-third, and the scientific appliances for use 

 in case of collision or fire are most complete. The opening 

 and closing of the doors in the bulkheads is controlled from 

 the bridge, and by a series of thermostats fixed throughout 

 the framework, the officer on tiie bridge is at once made 

 aware of an outbreak of fire in any part of the ship. Some 

 idea of the dimensions and weight of these vessels may be 

 formed from the fact that the weight of the stern frame 

 castings alone is over seventy tons, and the shaft brackets 

 supporting the after propellers' weight about seventy-live 

 tons, while the upper part of the stern-frame is 63 feet 

 high and 22 feet wide. 



In 1828 the British Empire owned 293 

 gating 32,000 tons, and during that year 31 



