| Show THE LARGEST STEAMSHIP mr A croll of this city sends bends the news an illustrated article from the weekly news of dundee scotland of the date of october 23 on the biggest steamship ever designed we cannot reproduce the pictures but the description is interesting and it is given herewith the crowning achievement of the cen century tury in marine architecture will be the construction under plans of prof J H biles designer of the floating palaces of the american line of a transatlantic trans atlantic steamer 1000 feet in length which will make the trip from new york to southampton in four days what hat is of equal importance to many transatlantic travelers to is that th at this vessel will make the journey over the stormy atlantic with no more rolling and pitching than can be observed on an ordinary pleasure steamer some enthusiasts say that the 1000 foot long boat will be mere ocean terry ferry and that the journey will be attended with scarcely any unpleasantness A ves vessel sel 1000 feet in length reaches over across or through three ordinary alantic ocean waves and in its progress will always be sustained by two of them with ith the result that there will be nope none of the pitching motion that in the days of and foot boats made an ocean trip an ordeal which has since been happily modified with the gradually increasing length of the liners yet still to is fraught with terror to the weak when the great eastern feet long was withdrawn from the ocean and sent to the scrap heap having proved unable to earn the cost coat of her coal the pessimists declared that in that failure ended the theory of large boats there was however the hed principle that increased speed in a vessel can be se secured cAred all other things being equal by an increase in its length and year by year the contest has gone on until the other day the glora of the foot campania was dimmed by the arrival 0 of f the kaiser wilhelm welhelm der grosse with its length of feet just as that number will next january in turn give way to the new white star steamer oceanic which from stern stem to stern stem will measure feet all the transatlantic steamers that are built in the future will be donver not shorter than those now in existence and the limit will be pushed to the extent of commercial utility there may be boats feet and feet long designed and built before the launching of the 1000 foot american liner the cunard steamship company has on hand the plans for a steamer feet in lenth length the difficulties of docking that 3 may suggest themselves at liverpool south ampton hamburg and havre can be readily overcome A much more serious matter is the accommodation of the harbors to the increased draught of the enlarged vessels the 1000 foot liner ha has s a designed draught of go 30 feet it will be feet wide the accepted proportions of an atlantic steamer now are breadth one tenth of the length it was in 1893 that professor biles in the north american review gave to the lay mind an idea of the possibilities of transatlantic navigation in a paper entitled thirty knots an hour to europe sanguine as he then was as to the future he discussed the four day boat in a manner somewhat tentative he referred to the necessity first of certain improvements in machinery and structural material which have within the four years that have elapsed been measurably realized at that he spoke of oil or fuel lighter than coal being a desidera desideratum turn and discussed the use of a water tube boiler as a hope the latter has been adopted the fuel question has not been solved as yet but the conditions are improved there are eminent engineers who expect that electricity will be the motive power of the liner of the near future but equally eminent engineers are going ahead in the work of adding to the utility of stearn steam |
