the left an endless stream of lights, show the vessels passing between the observer and the row of white lanterns standing out in bold relief from the contrasting gloom of Sandy Hook or the Staten Island shore.

The floating gas-buoys marking the boundaries of the channel will be anchored evenly along the sides, forming parallel lines of fire for a distance of cight miles-intermittent red flashes to starboard, toward Brooklyn; and fixed white lights to port, or toward Staten Island. Between these rows of red and white, the visitor will steam to reach The Narrows and the harbor beyond.

To the navigator on the bridge, these guiding lights will be clearer than street signs to the stranger; for, with other great lights high above the water, lightships and range lanterns as arranged by Colonel Roselle, the engineer in charge at Tompkinsville-he will constantly know his position and confidently steer his course.

The act of Congress carries an appropriation of $321,000, and provides for a lightship well off the sea end, to cost not more than $115,000. This will give the pilot his bearings from the outside to the entrance of the channel; and, steaming past this vessel, a new lighthouse on Staten Island will be sighted. Proceeding to "The Bend," marked by range lanterns, and passing Romer Shoal, the ship will bear northeast, with the well-known Sandy Hook light and North Hook beacon dead astern, until abreast of the gastank vessel on the West Bank; then, picking up the beacon on Craven Shoal, the ship steams past Swinburne Island to the shoal which marks the north end of this new waterway.

The lighthouse at Richmond on Staten Island, will be visible thirty miles at sea and will cost $100,000; the two range lanterns and their structures at The Bend will cost $12,000; moving the North Hook beacon and cost of gas-tank vessel, $15,000. The lantern and stone beacon on Craven Shoal will take $20,000, and $10,000 will be expended for a temporary structure while the North Hook beacon is being moved.

This passageway, so generously planned and broad enough for the shipping of

the port, will greatly benefit navigation by expediting the tremendous traffic now passing through this funnel for the ships of the world, and will reduce the strain on the men responsible for the safety of hundreds of thousands of lives and countless treasure in the cargoes entrusted to their keeping. These pilots fully earn their living, if strenuous endeavor counts for anything-being continually exposed to dangers of which the landsman knows nothing, and which the passenger, in his comfortable cabin, little realizes. They are the fellows who stay out in their frail schooners when every other craft runs to shelter, facing arctic rigor when masts. are big as barrels with ice and ropes are like tree trunks; and, answering the bluelight bidding of a "liner," fight their way in a rowboat through heavy seas to climb "Jacob's ladder," in spite of slamming smashes against steel walls, putting to shame the thrill of the flying trapeze. They sometimes fail, as the records testify to the long toll of deaths levied among them, eight or more being killed every

year.

Here seems to be danger enough for the most extravagant lover of adventure! The chief risk, however, is not in climbing iceberg-like ships' sides or boarding vessels in storms from a dancing cockleshell rowboat, but in the ever-present peril of being run down. This nerveracking suspense is everlastingly with them in fog and darkness, lying, as they must, in the track of steamers-squarely in the track, too, or else they will pass

unseen.

The bridge of an ocean liner is especially interesting at night, when the responsibility for sponsibility for the safety of three thousand lives weighs most heavily and the darkness lends an added peril. The mechanism of the great engines forcing eight hundred feet of steel through the water at twenty-five knots, is wonderful to contemplate; and the ingenious devices for steering are little less than marvelous.

The Mauretania is by long odds the heaviest portable object in the world, it weighing 45,000 tons, while its extreme length renders it extremely sensitive to the action of winds and currents. This steel hull nearly one-seventh of a mile

long, is under such instant control that it can be readily guided to right or left by the pressure of a single finger.

Perhaps the most surprising thing the landsman will notice is to find the wheelman standing in the darkness of the pilothouse behind drawn blinds, steering the course directed by the pilot outside on the bridge. This is necessary to avoid disturbing the pilot's vision and the possible distraction of the wheelman from his real business of undivided attention to signals and the compass. The dial of the latter is illuminated by a single electric lamp shaded in all other directions; and the man at the helm might be located in the bowels of the ship, so far as other matters are concerned.

The development of the steamship is of absorbing interest; and the tremendous strides of improvement between Fulton's Clermont, in 1807, and the new Cunard express steamers for 1907, are amazing to the student of marine engineering. The practicability of the latter enormous vessels has been made possible by modern methods of working steel, the use of pneumatic and electric tools, and the invention of the Parsons turbine engine. The recently launched Mauretania and Lusitania are each 269 times as large as the Clermont, and will steam farther in one day than the latter could in a week. The horse-power has been multiplied 3,000 times in the new ships, and they will carry 270 times as much freight. This represents the wonderful increase in speed and carrying capacity of one hundred years' progress in steamship building.

They will be veritable marine skyscrapers, with the equipment and luxuries of the latest types of hotel and office buildings, containing all known devices making for convenience and comfort, from curling tongs in milady's cabin-deluxe, to passenger elevators connecting

various decks.

For two years past, the construction of these ships has aroused more attention than any similar enterprise since the launch of Brunel's celebrated Great Eastern.

The interest is threefold, embracing, as it does, the largest vessels ever realized or planned, the swiftest merchantmen, and the application of turbine pro

The 20-knot Atlantic liner of twenty years back, displaced 10,500 tons; the 22knot vessel, ten years ago, 18,000 tons; the 23-knot German flyer of five years ago, 26.000 tons; and to reach 25-knots, it is necessary to increase the displacement to 38,000 tons, notwithstanding the comparative lightness of turbine engines as compared with the weight of those of the reciprocating type.

Since the Britannia of 1840, built for the Cunard Line, the speed has multiplied only threefold, but the power has increased nearly one hundred times. The coal consumption, however, is only about nine times greater, owing to higher economy and shorter period of voyage. The little Britannia was 207 feet long, 34 feet beam, and 24 feet 4 inches deep. She had a displacement of 1,154 tons, horsepower 740, and cargo capacity of 225 tons. She was registered to carry 115 cabin passengers, no second, third, or fourth class being thought of at that time. She made her first trip from Liverpool to Boston in 14 days 8 hours, carrying 65 in the passengers. Charles Dickens, opening chapter of "American Notes," humorously described the stateroom oc