POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
STEAMSHIPS FOR THE CHANNEL PASSAGE. 
Br C. W. MERKIFIELD, F.R.S. 
[PLATE XCII.] 
Errata in the last Number 
Page 343, lines 37 and 38, /or shower masses of pink through the walls of its 
read show as masses of pink through the walls of the 
Popular Science Review, October 
capital is quite out of proportion to any probable traffic return. 
It is easy enough to talk in general terms of absorbing the 
whole of the continental passenger traffic, increased by a safe 
and comfortable means of transit ; but in the first place it is 
not possible to secure all or nearly all of it at renumerative 
rates, and secondly the whole annual number of passengers is 
very limited. We in England are apt to talk as if the channel 
passage were of even greater importance to Europe than to 
ourselves. The fact is the reverse. It is a primary matter to 
us, a secondary affair to France and Belgium, and a thing of 
very small concern to anybody else. It is the English who 
have most to gain by it ; and on England, therefore, in some 
shape or other, the charge will ultimately fall. In so far as 
they depend upon passenger traffic across the channel, large 
engineering works cannot be renumerative. It is true that a 
company may be promoted, and that it may make the fortune 
VOL. XII. — NO. XLYI. B 
