January 11.
So accustomed is the world becoming to hearing of records that had been looked upon as wonderful going by the board that the latest feat of the Mauretania, the accom-pushment of the double journey from Liverpool to New York and back again in twelve days, four hours and thirty-nine minutes, almost comes as the realization of the expected. Still, even in these days of magnificent engineering triumphs, the feat is one that appears the more remarkable, the more closely it is examined. All 63 those who have travelled by sea to any extent know that in a well-quipped steamer the actual length of time to be occupied in traversing the ocean from port to port can be almost exactly determined beforehand. With carefully selected deck and engine-room staffs, well-tested machinery, the best coal and an approximate knowledge by previous experience of probable weather conditions the Captain of a modern liner can keep to schedule time with almost as little difficulty as the engine-driver of an express train. But the 2 of the equation in a round trip such as that of the Mauretania is the time consumed in coaling, landing and shipping passengers and their impedimenta. The usual stop of the Mauretania at New York occupies five days. On the occasion under consideration the work that usually occupied that period of time was compre: sed into forty-one hours. The organization of the small army of workers who had to discharge and load the mammoth steamer and to fill her cavernous bunkers must have been genuinely wonderful; and to those who directed their labours is fairly dae as much praise as has boon rightfully given to the ship and her crew.
Naturally enough the establishment of a new record inspires interest in past accomplishments, as by comparison alone can its importance be gauged. It is when these old records are consulted that the stupendous advance that has been made can be fully realized. The first steamer to cross the Atlantic was_the Canadian built vessel Royal Wil which occupied twenty-two days in the from Pictou, Nova Scotia, to Gravesend. The honour of being the first steamer to cross from the Old World to the New fell to the Sirius, which left Cork on April 5, 1838 and arrived at New York on April 23. Her coaling arrangements do not seem to have been quite so perfect as those of the Mauretania, as she ran short of coal and was only enabled to reach port by utilizing' practically everything burnable on board." The Great Western arrived in New York the same day, having left Bristol on April 8.' The first passage from Liverpool to New York was made the same year by another steamer called the Royal' William, the time taken being nineteen days. Every year since has seen a fight against Time being waged, and a long series of successes culminated in 1909 in the phenomenal run betweenQueenstown und New York by the Mauretania, in four days ten hours and fifty-one minutes. An interest-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.