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crank shafts weighing 118 tons each. These ponderous masses of metal are driven at a speed of 75 revolutions per minute by triple expansion engines with four cylinders, the high pressure cylinder being 54 inches in diameter, the intermediate 84 and the two low pressure 97 inches in diameter, while all have a stroke of 6 feet 3 inches. Each engine bedplate weighs 195 tons.

The center propeller, which is only 16 feet 6 inches in diameter, has to run at more than double the speed of the wing propellers, or 165 revolutions per minute. It is driven by the latest type of Parsons turbine, the rotor of which is 12 feet in diameter and 13 feet 8 inches

long. From the company's standpoint the most attractive feature of this arrangement is not that it abolished sea sickness, as alleged, but that it keeps the coal bill down. Steam, generated in 20 double ended and 5 single ended Scotch boilers, all 15 feet 9 inches in diameter, the double enders 20 feet and the single 11 feet 9 inches long, is delivered to the reciprocating engines at 215 pounds pressure. The high pressure cylinders get all they can out of the steam, which is then passed on to the intermediate cylinders, which go after the elasticity in that steam like a Paris hotel keeper after a tourist's cash, then dole it out to the low pressure cylinders. Not

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safety appliances that the ingenuity of man has devised. In this respect the steamship companies are exactly like the railroads. Every so-called safety appliance on a railroad today has been adopted for its economic value, the safety secured thereby being incidental-a sort of by-product, so to speak. However, when a passenger by sea or land is zealously guarded from harm it is no part of his business to analyze the motives that insure his safety. If some blundering steamer should run full tilt into the Olympic as the Florida did into the Republic it is safe to predict that the new giant will not only stay afloat long enough to transfer all her passengers, but that her bulk

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until every ounce of pressure that a reciprocating engine can get out of it has been extracted from that steam is it allowed to escape to the turbine. Although by this time the steam is so weak it can hardly struggle on, the turbine has become so wonderfully efficient that it contrives to develop a great deal of power out of this exhaust steam. When the turbine gets through with it the steam, which by this time isn't much more effective than hot water, goes to the condenser, and from there back to the boilers to begin the weary round all over again.

Still bearing in mind the outlay of $7,500,000, rather than from an inordinate solicitude for prospective passengers, the company has equipped the Olympic

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heads will be found strong enough to withstand the strain of towing to port. There are the usual doors between watertight compartments all closed at once by a touch on an electric button on the bridge, the submarine signaling apparatus that can pick up the tones of a warning bell seventeen miles distant and also tell the direction from which the warning comes, the wireless telegraph that will keep the ship in constant touch with the shore and with other ships and the elaborate fire protection system to be found on all modern liners. In addition to all these the Olympic has a new wrinkle in the arrangement of the small boats.

To quote from page 156, volume 16 of the Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, "It is compulsory to provide a full complement of life boats and other life saving appliances together with davits which can be relied upon to lower the boats in a heavy sea without the least chance of mishap.

Provided a vessel is not afire and can float, even with a big hole in her side she is about the most comfortable and the safest place available in midAtlantic."

The laws of England and the United States do not require a vessel like the Olympic to carry small boats enough to accommodate all the passengers and crew, but even the number she does carry

takes up a great deal of room the passengers would rather have devoted to promenades. By using sixteen sets of Welin double acting quadrant davits, which will swing a boat away from the ship's side and stay put at any angle in any kind of a sea, the Olympic is enabled to stow 32 boats and have most of the deck room too, for each set of davits handles two boats. This arrangement, which has been approved by the conservative British Board of Trade, not only reduces the cost, saves weight and gives greatly increased deck space, but also makes it possible to carry more life boats and still have them readily accessible in case of need.

Since there seems to be no limit to the sums otherwise sane Americans are willing to pay to be ferried across the Atlantic, every facility will be afforded the passenger on the Olympic for getting rid of his money. On any of the big modern liners one may pay from $112.50 for a single berth in an inside room down in the basement to two thousand dollars for an imperial suite on an upper deck where the passengers who like to stay up all night can congregate under the windows to gabble. Not many pay the minimum rate in the "high season," though: the steamship companies see to that. One of the big new German steamships quotes a minimum rate of $112.50 per berth but inquiry reveals the fact that

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ELECTRIC CRANE EQUIPMENT USED IN CONSTRUCTING THE GIGANTIC TWIN STEAMERS,

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there are just three two berth rooms on the ship at that rate. The rest of the five hundred and twenty first class passengers pay two hundred to six hundred dollars a head. The distance across the Atlantic is about three times the distance from New York to Chicago. The total cost of a trip between these two cities, including berth and meals on the fastest and costliest trains is $38. Three times the distance would amount to $114. But the average rate on the new liners is about three times that amount. The rates on the Olympic have not yet been announced, but there is no reason to doubt that they will be ample.

In return for his money the first class passenger can eat his meals, provided he isn't too sick to think of victuals, in a main dining room. seating six hundred persons, the biggest and most elaborate dining room afloat, or in a smaller dining room. Between meals he can loiter in sumptuous drawing rooms, the lounge or smoking rooms or library, or he can take a turn around the decks, counting about four laps to the mile, or he can work up an appetite in the gymnasium, or take a plunge in the swimming pool. If all these attractions pall he may seek relaxation in the ball room, the theater or the skating rink, all of which are combined in a single vast area of glass

enclosed deck.

Should there be any danger of his money burning holes in his pockets before he can get to Europe with it, the passenger on the Olympic can find. prompt relief at the verandah cafe, where he can mingle sea-breezes with his liquor; or, if more heroic measures seem called for, he can get rid of his cash in larger wads at the tailor shop or dressmakers' parlors on board, or he can spend it still faster at the jewelry store. In fact there is nothing to prevent the passenger from achieving bankruptcy on the outward bound voyage so that he may return on the first homeward bound vessel. This will save time and simplify the annual hegira.

The Olympic will have accommodations for 2,500 passengers in all. Το run the ship and wait upon this great throng will require a crew of 860 which will be commanded by Captain E. J. Smith, now of the Adriatic. The new liner will not lack business. Although sailing dates and rates have not been announced applications for berths have been coming in ever since last fall at a rate which indicates that some intending passengers may have to travel on other ships or submit to the perfectly dreadful and scarcely-to-be-thought of alternative. of staying at home.

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A

By

H. H. BRINSMADE

FTER having their existence enveloped in much mythical uncertainty, fall strawberries have at last become an accomplished fact.

They were first tried out in Iowa. After a preliminary test, Mr. Lawrence J. Farmer of Pulaski, New York, purchased five hundred plants. These plants differ from other varieties only in the single particular that they blossom steadily from June until November. A large crop is obtained by pinching off the blossoms three weeks prior to the time that fruit is desired. If berries are desired by September first this may be secured if the blossoms be pinched or cut off in the first week of August.

At his farm near Pulaski, New York, Mr. Farmer last year had a fine crop of berries both fully ripe and green. The beds were covered so as to prevent dam

age from frost. Three pickings from Mr. Farmer's strawberry beds since August 15 averaged more than 600 quarts to the acre. A ready market at twenty-five cents a quart was found.

Ordinary berries produce but one crop in two years. This variety of strawberries produces a crop in the fall following the spring in which they are planted. The next crop is the following June and then again in the autumn, or two in one year.

An exhibit of strawberries in middle September is a most unusual spectacle. Just as the plants may be seen late in spring, resplendent in their fragrant blossoms, green fruit and ripe berries, so were they last fall in Mr. Farmer's garden.

Those of the chosen few who partook of the luxury declared that the fruit possessed a flavor fully equal to the berry raised in June.

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