The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-01-15
BY JULIUS MILLER.


T was the last dinner on the lean
long liner. Springins over the
ocean with leaps of thirty-eight
feet for each tick of the clocks second
hand. the running ship would raise the
skeleton disks Of the red Sandy Hook
lightship above the level sea before
breakfast next morning.
Every beauty on board looked en-
thusiasm at the big captain. Every
p0issengrG- Of the rich crowd beamed
a1lrnirinC CongratulatiOn at him. Not
a millionaire of the lot in the gold
and white dining hall could have COM
manded one-tenth of the flattery that
was offered to the King of the Bridge:
for the days mileage that is posted
every twenty-four hours on big ships
told that she was making record
speed, and might even break a record
if she could manage to clip off lust
a few fractions of knots in the fraC-
ton of a day that remained TO COM
q plete the race.
But the admired. hattered. courted
king returned the smiles with less
enthusiasm than was shown by the
poorest waiter. Under his replies to
the rapid fire Sunnery of questions
his mind turned formula over and
over again:
"One ton and a quarter an hour
twCnty-fOur times. and five times. and
eighteen and three-quartcrs of a ton
more to come. makes 1854 tons at
$3.50 a ton, which makes s42I and odd
cents"
on the hour when the twin screws
kicked their white and green rollers
in naughty farewell at the graceful
obelisk Of the Eddystoue. the formula
had begun its reign. With every turn
Of each 250-ton propeller shaft il had
grown in Importance. The big cap
tam OF the big record-making ship was
worrying over fuel like a housewife.
No Gold Lace in This.
Every day. and mostly many times
every day, he and the. chief engineer
had studied and compared and in
Vestigated. When the captain left his
Elittering dais of a navigating bridge
and disappeared in his chart room he
did not take a little siesta. as his
pretty passengers suspected when
they sought unavailingly to tempt
him forth with fUttering gowns and
wind blown curls. He was looking over
rows of figures-linear feet and wards
OF figures. He was looking over an
6truse tables Of combustion statistics
He was dipping into chemistry Dur
ing the five days of smashing Sea-race
grimy men had made complex ,seDorte
one-quarter acres of heating surface
under the nineteen thunderous boilers
a square foot of figures gave his CHIEF
engineer and him steam preseures bou,
Tor hour. A sweating engine room STAR
had written down for them a mighty
report showing the results of painful
examination Of the condenser tubes
forty-five miles of them.
The electrician had brought in a 70
port of the LOO incandescent lights Of
the ship, telling the power consumed
and the candle power produced by
each For hours they had pored over
sets or tables that told a mathematical
and geometrical and algebrafcaI his
tory or four monumental steel things
the four towering sets of quadrupIe ex-
panSion engines that bulIied 40 GOO
horse power out of the steam. Every
engine of the sixty-eight aboard his
ship had been probed and reporta5
But minute after minute. hour after
hour, day after day, the 112 furnaces
had gorged the coal-eaten a ton and
a quarter an hour more than their
average, and nobody aboard had dis
covered the reason.
So the man on whom the passeD-
gers looked as the very master Of the
day the arbiter of the ocean flight
had before him only the disyuaviDn
fact that somehow the voyage was GO
ing TO cost his owners close to $500 more
than Il ought 20 cost-s500 clear waste
a BLACK Eye Ahead.
There was no way 10 beat it. Had
he slowed down. he might have come
near to running the voyage at the
usual cost in coal But his ship would
have blackened her speed record. which
was worth many times $500 in dollars
and cents. IN addition. day or even
half day delay with $500 people
aboard, would mean almost as much in