Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-06-16
ONLY FOUR DAYS To CROSS OCEAN.
THE ORDER FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SHIP OF THE FU-
TURE HAS ALREADY BEEN PLACED.

lit was not many years ago that the
idea of the invention of a ship capable
of crossing the ocean in four days would
have been regarded as the dream of a
man gone mad on the subject of ship
ping. Today there is every reason to be-
lieve that this dream will be realized as
the contract for the construction of the
great vessel has already ben placed and 1t
will be a comparatively short time be-
fore the speedy craft will be sailing the
seas.
According to the contract that has
been made the new boat must be ready
within two years. 1t will be amonster,
much greater than the famous Great
Eastern, and her twin screws of 25 feet
diameter and the prodigious energy gem
Grated to the extent of about 40, 900 horse
will be able to drive her across the ocean
at an average speed of % knots or nearly
% miles an hour.
That is almost as good time as is made
by the average service of accommodation
trains upon the railways of the United
States, and is perhaps only about 10 miles
les than the speed of the average eN-
press train. At any rate it is certainly
a speed which the marine. architects of
20 years ago deemed impossible to obtain
by any known marine machinery, a pre-
diction in which they We're accurate at
the time, for it never could have been
lone had it not been that such vast I'M
pIoN6IElSItS Ildu ItGH IIldlt III II
gines Of recent years.
MARINE WONDERS.
AS it is, therefore the marine wonder
that is promised has caused extremely
little establishment in shipping circles.
Men have opened their eyes a bit wider
and lave smiled knowingly. ooh, so 1t
has come to that, has it?" they have
asked. well, it will not belong before
we shall have the 4O-knot boat" Twenty
years ago 20 knots was considered an i'm
possibility. To-day 2o-knot speed is
passed and 10 knots is regarded as a prob
ability of the immediate future. There
can be no question but that the world is
in motion in that sphere where shipping
men congregate.
At present the opinion of some of the
most prominent shipping experts seems
TO be that the ship of the future is even
now upon it's way, but that this dream
of the marine architects can never be
realized until the docks at the various
ports have been enlarged and the harbors
~deepened.
Already the comparative costs for car
rying a ton of cargo 5000 nautical miles
have been worked out, and from these
calculations it appears that for dead
weight cargoes. unless draught of water
be increased along with other dimen-
sions. the cost of carrying actually grows
with the size of the ship. If the draught
be increased proportionately to he
greater dimensions, however the cargo
can be carried at a steadily decreasing
cost as size increases.
For instance, it can be shown that a
7oO-foot ship will carry II tons at he
same cost as a 500-foot ship will carry
10 tons if the draught of water be in
creased prop~ortionately. If, however, the
drausht remains constant, the 700-fcot
ship will carry only ~ tons at the same
cost that the 500-ship will carry 10 tons.
The above figures measure efficiency on
the assumption that earning power de-
Ponds on weight carried. But. assuming
that the total cubic capacity of a ship is
a measure of earning power, then the re-
spective total working expenses must be
related to the capacities Of the ships.
From figures given under these circum-
stances, it is seen that the cost of carry
ing LOCO, COO cubic feet of cargo decreases
with increase of size, provided that the