17 minutes. On December 11, 1866, the schooner yachts Henrietta, Fleetwing and Vesta sailed from Sandy Hook for the Needles, Isle of Wight, for a stake of $90 000. The Henrietta, owned by James Gordon Bennett, won in 13 days, 21 hours, 55 minutes, an average of 9 knots for 3,106 miles. On July 4, 1870, the schooner yachts Dauntless and Cambria started from old Kinsale Head, Ireland, for Sandy Hook Lightship for a £250 cup. Cambria won in 23 days, 5 hours, 17 minutes. Dauntless' time was 23 days, 7 hours. On March 12, 1887, the schooner yachts Coronet and Dauntless started from Bay Ridge for Queenstown for stakes of $10,000 a side. Coronet's time, 14 days, 23 hours, 30 minutes, 46 seconds; L'auntless' time, 16 days, 1 hour, 43 minutes, 13 seconds. The Coronet's owner was the late Rufus T. Bush, of Brooklyn. The Dauntless was sailed by Capt. Samuel Samuels, of the old clipper ship Dreadnaught, and owned by Caldwell H. Colt, of Hartford.

LONG STEAMING RECORD.

The steamship Doric, 4,675 tons, from the Mersey for San Francisco via Magellan Straits, accomplished the passage in 1896 of 13,600 miles in 41 days. Her speed averaged 14 knots throughout, which on a voyage of such distance, without a break, is unparalleled in ocean steaming.

THE FASTEST VESSELS.

5 08 44

3 55 56 3 55 09 4 43 43

4 53 53 5 04 01 3 27

3 38 09

3 44 43

The Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse is the fastest ocean steamer afloat, her fastest day's run on May 2 to 3, 1898, being 580 knots, or 23.35 knots per hour.

The fastest short-distance steamer service is that main

tained between Kingston and Holyhead by the City of Dublin Steam Packet Co. There are four vessels, the Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connaught, that maintain an average of 24 knots and have attained over 25 knots per hour between these ports, the distance being 60 miles. They are twin-screw steamers of 3,000 tons and 8,000 horse power and make four trips a day.

The fastest torpedo boat in the world is the Hai Lung, built by Schichau for the Chinese Government, which in open sea with fresh wind ran over a course of 19 knots several times at the rate of 35.2 knots.

The Turbinia, built on the turbine system of steam propulsion, made between 34 and 35 knots per hour.

The fastest boat of any kind afloat is the little steam yacht Ellide, which has covered a measured mile in 1 minute and 35 seconds, an equivalent speed if sustained of 40 miles per hour. She is 80 feet long, 8 feet 4 inches deep and her mean draught is 3 feet 6 inches.

The American built steamship St. Louis, during 1899, traveled the greatest distance in a single year, not only of any vessel ever built, but of any automobile creation of man ever constructed. She made 17 complete trips, or 34 voyages across the Atlantic between New York and Southampton, a distance four and a quarter times that around the earth. She traveled 106,764 and onehalf miles and carried 16,858 passengers, of which 5,981 were first-class, without a single mishap of any nature to mar her remarkable record. She was out of commission only two weeks. No locomotive or vehicle propelled by its own motive power ever reached so great a mileage in one year. She averaged 292 miles a day for every day in the year She was in port 133 days and her average at sea was 460 miles a day.

SMALL BOAT VOYAGES.

The Red, White and Blue, a galvanized iron lifeboat, length 26 feet, beam 6 feet, depth 3 feet, July 9 to Aug. 16, 1866, made a transatlantic voyage with Capt. John M. Hudson and Frank E. Fitch, as crew, being 39 days at sea, and was afterwards exhibited at the Crystal Palace, London.

In 1876, between June 15 and August 11, Alfred Johnson crossed the Atlantic alone in a small boat, sailing from Gloucester, Mass., running on the average about 70 miles a day and landing at Abercastle, Pembrokeshire, after being 57 days at sea.

Between May 28 and July 21, 1877, Captain and Mrs. Crapo (the latter as steerswoman) made a trip across the Atlantic in a 20 foot boat of one ton burden, named New Belford, after the town from which they sailed. Duration of voyage was 54 days. The Captain's sleep averaged four hours a day.

Capt. Wm. A. Andrews, in 1878, crossed the Atlantic in the Nautilus, 19 feet over all, and 2 feet 3 inches deep, making the voyage in 45 days. In 1888, Captain Andrews went from Boston to Queenstown in the dory Dark Secret, 15 feet long and 2 feet deep, taking 62 days in crossing and encountering several gales. In 1891 he crossed from Boston to Antwerp in a centreboard boat, the Mermaid, 15 feet long, in 57 days. These trips averaged over 3,000 miles. In 1892 Captain Andrews crossed the Atlantic in a 14 foot canvas covered folding boat, landing at Palos, in 30 days, which trip was the fastest small boat record, although 1,000 miles further from land to land than any previous small craft had made. He beat the caravels of Columbus by 12 days.

In the year 1886 two Norwegians, Magnus Anderson (Captain of the Viking ship of American World's Fair fame) and Christain Christainsen, voyaged from Norway to Newfoundland in the Ocean, 18 feet long.

On January 20, 1888, the American bark Aquidneck was wrecked off a sandbar near Paraguay, Capt. Joshua Slocum, wife and son being survivors. From the wreck he built a boat 35 feet long, 7 and one-half feet wide and 3 feet deep, named La Libertad (the Liberty), sailed with family in her 7,000 miles and landed safely at Vineyard Haven, Mass., Aug. 24, 1889. Captain Slocum afterwards completed a trip of 46,000 miles in a yawl, named Spray, 40 feet long.

Capt. Adolph Frietsch crossed the Atlantic in the schooner-rigged skiff Nina, 40 feet long and 8 feet wide.

Captain Webb also crossed in the small deck boat Dark Secret.

EASTWARD AND WESTWARD VOYAGES.

The day's run to the westward in the transatlantic passage counts many more miles than to the eastward, the reason of course, being the difference of time between Queenstown and Sandy Hook. This being nearly four hours, twenty-three minutes, it follows that in a six days' passage to the westward there are between noon and noon not 24 hours, but an average of 24 hours and almost 44 minutes. In fact the longest days, from noon to noon, in the high latitudes, contain nearly 25 hours. In going to the eastward this is reversed; the average sea day contains only 23 hours, 16 minutes, and the shortest sea day little more than 23 hours. An hour-and-a-half's steaming at 20 knots accounts for an average difference of 30 nautical miles between the day's work in opposite directions, while in northern latitudes, the difference being two hours, 500 miles to the westward means the same speed as 460 miles to the eastward.

OCEAN NO LONGER TRACKLESS.

We speak of the ocean as "trackless." It is so no longer. If two vessels sail from New York for Calcutta, they will, if intelligently navigated, follow so nearly the same course that their paths, if plotted on a chart, will hardly diverge by fifty miles at any point. The same is true of any other route. Let us consider the case of a vessel bound for New York from Liverpool. Her captain might, if prepared for a constant battle against adverse winds and currents and winter gales, select a route not very different from that followed by ocean steamers between those ports. Otherwise he would follow the southern route laid down by the Sailing Directors; and after beating to the westward a few hundred miles to make sure of clearing the coast of Spain, would shape a course to the southward, passing as far west of Madeira as the westerly winds of these latitudes will permit. Be