The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-04-19

carried passengers without freight we
couldn't afford to run them. The problem
/ we are endeayoring to solve IS to build q
ship that can make these fast trips and at
| the same time have room enough in her
hold for freight and on her decks for pas
! sengers. On these ships safety must be
the first consideration. To realize the
steamer of the future, the company which
| represent and, | guess, the heads
OF the other great steamship lines,
| also, are sparing neither trouble nor eX-
pense in securing the latest phase of marine
architecture perfect in the three require
ments OF modern travel-safety, speed and
comfort In our ships there are two dis
tlnct sets OF boilers two engines, two shafts
and two screws, both sets working indie
penoently of each other and separated by
one solid longitudinal bulkhead running
from the keel to the upper deck and divid-
| ing Inc vessel into two communicating
halves, of which each is fully equipped to
propei the ship. You see, an accident to
one side OF the ship can In no manner affect
the other, whose machinery will continue
to work and propel the ship with the great
est ease. The Water-tigh compartments
will confine to one compartment any acct
dent that might happen.n
"How many lines have adopted the twin
screw SYSTEM"
''Well our own, the Inman and the White
Star is all at the present time but 1have no
doubt but that they will all be using it in
the near future. The ship of the future
will to my mind have larger engines
and have four Of them with two set of twin
screws. You can readily see that to carry
this extra machinery and at the same time
not decrease the freight and passenger
carrying capacity we must have some
pretty big ships. In the Normania, our
| TWO engines make a total of II, 800 horse
A1.Al
the force at our command would be very
great
"And as to electricity as motive power,
Mr.. Schurz!''
''Oh, you see am not figuring on that,
| but it will be all the better in case we can
use electricity. The question with electri-
city is we do not yet know what its pecu-
harities are and what it is capable of doing.
L should not be surprised to see it adopted
in our Atlantic passenger ships almost al
any time, but there are certain problems tc
be solved in electricity before we can use il
III big steamships as motive power. We
must know that it is safe. That is the very
important question that has not yet beer
satisfactorily answered. We must be able
to secure it at a reasonable expense.
don't suppose that any of the great steam
ship lines would hesitate at few hundred
thousand dollars on every ship, but thu
cost Of the original plant is not the tnlns
that they would hesitate at. What could i
berun for, and what room would the man
ufacturing paraphernalia take up in th'
ships hold. If it would occupy more room
than the machinery now in use, that woult
be very bad, but it is more than likely i
would take much less space, and every foo
of space on a big ship has its value. Ever
though electricity would costus much NOR
than the present system Of motive power, i
we could make faster time and be asSuret
that it was safe, we would adopt it. w
can't experiment with electricity, which i
, an unknown power to a great extent as yet
J on one of our big vessels out in the middl
OF the Atlantic, whereit might kick up jus
! like an untractable horse. / believe tn
|. time will come, though, when electricit
will be used as the motive power on on
} great railroads and steamship lines. Blu
s until we get it we cannot stand idle, bu