The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, AUGUST 25, 1902. A GREAT STEAMER.

Gisborne Times, Volume VIII, Issue 510, 25 August 1902, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, AUGUST 25, 1902. A GREAT STEAMER.

The launching of the largest vessel in the world took place at Belfast last weok, when the Cedric was sent forth. Under the heading “ The Wonders of Transit ” the Auckland Herald makes a very interesting commentary on the fact that we live in an epoch of marvellous and sustained mechanical development. Our con- ' temporary remarks : That a vessel of close upon 21,000 tons should float upon the waters is in itself a triumph, but that it should be driven at a rate of speed far surpassing the lightest and swiftest sailing ship is a crowning triumph. Yet these things are only part of what a giant steamer is and can do. Its equipment includes a hundred, nay, a thousand inventions and appliances, any one of which would amaze the old-time shipwright. And every | year something new is added to its armory, some delicate device, some cunning contrivance, some fresh aid to comfort, safety or convenience. Already a modern passenger ship is the typo of all that is most perfect in our mechanical civilisation. Yet it will probably be improved as much in the coming century as it has been in the one which has passed. It is comforting to us to know that the British yards have easily regained the lead in shipbuilding, which they temporarily allowed to be clutched away from them by the Germans, but it is well to remember that the great possibilities of ocean-travel in the future depend upon the fact that each and all of the civilised nations have concentrated their energies upon the development of the ocean-carriers. The Belfast yards hold the blue ribbon of the friendly competition, but the great German boats have made for tbemsclves an enviable record, and France has produced liners of which no nation need he ashamed. What is to be the limit of size in shipbuilding ? It was thought to have been reached some years ago, but our rivals demonstrated otherwise. Already the unfortunate Great Eastern has been belittled by steamers which are profitably and successfully run. The improvements in engineering plant, the still increasing knowledge in metallurgy, the extension of docks, the intensifying of new and old motive powers, with°the insatiable demand for luxurious accommodation by travellers, all conduce to the building of larger ships. Already 20,000-tonners have pre-empted the first ranks. May we not have 30,000-tonners, even 40,000 or 50,000, before the century begins to wane ? They may be made practically unsinkablo. They may be modified in shape to secure stability and obviate sea-sickness, as already their hulls are being modified. They may draw their motive power from oil instead of from coal, and travel thirty, forty, fifty miles an hour where they now travel twenty. They may change their motive power and use electricity instead of steam. They may leave the surface and speed beneath the waters, or they may leave the surface and cleave the air. For we live

in an age when wonders are as natural as lin the Arabian Nights, v,hen Science is as ■ the genii of ring and lamp and bends obednnt Nature to the desires of men. Who shall say what is possible and what is impossible when 2 i.c00 ton ships sweep across the ocean, faster than any racehorse, thronged with the population of a township and guided easily by one man's hand. Jules Verne, inspired by the scientific imagination, prophesied to schoolboys the wonders that were to be, while the world at large smiled at his rhapsodies. Every man knows now that a ‘‘Nautilus ” may be already actually constructed in some Government dockyard, that the secrets of aerial flight are warm to a myriad of seekers. Ocean travel may easily be most perfectly affected by either submarine or rerial developments, and men may dive or fly to Europe during this Twentieth Century. Following Jules Verne's methods and looking round for some indication of modern processes which may affect travel generally, we can see that there is a tendency to supply motive power from a central station rather than to carry coal and unwieldy machinery. The replacement of horse cars and steam trams alike by electric trolley cars is a remarkable instance of this. It is going on under our eyes to-day in Auckland. It may ultimately bo applied on an extended scale to all railways. Why may it not bo applied at sea to steamers, in the air to Hying machines '? This new White Star liner loses half her potential capacity by having to bo gorged with coal and crammed with machinery. Grant the possibility of her picking up motive power along the route, and it is evident that she is doubled in size for practical purposes and that her equipment cost is vastly reduced. And who shall say that with the growth of this wonderful century electric trolley-lines may not swing across the oceans, on all the great travel routes, suspended from great balloons and feeding power to unending chains of flying ships, which thus manage to evado the now insuperable difficulty presented by the weight of the machinery necessary to supply their motive force'? Such dreams arc wild, of course, but not so wild to the men of to-day as would have seemed, to the founders of Auckland, this talo of a Belfast vessel that 800,000 sheep would hardly sink to the , load-line and that would travel 000 miles i in a day.