The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1907-10-17
Steam Ravioatiofl.
Pcper Read Before The Chaa,auqua Circle.


Pepper Read Before the Chau,auqua Circle
X FEW days since there steamed
~ into New York harbor the
greatest floating palace that
the commercial world has 80
tar been able to devise-the Cunard
siner,' Lusitania. The successful trial
trip of this great vessel marks new
epoch in steam navigation, in that it
has been successfully demonstrated
that the turbine engine, the most SIM
pie as we'll as powerful steam engine
so far invented, is success, even
where speed, as we'll as power and econ
omy of fuel consumption, is demanded,
and while the ship failed on her maid
en- voyage to lower the speed record, it
seems reasonable to suppose that after
che warns up to her work she will
oeat the record of average knots per
hour which is now held by the German
steamer Deutschland of the New York.
Bremen line. However, notwithstand-
ing her new and nntried engines she
won the palm on the s'iand to land"
time, having made it in five days and
sifty-four minutes, thus lowering the
record of the champion, a sister ship
OF the same line, the Lncania. ltis
claimed that her engines can be devel-
oped to $1,000 horsepower and if this
prove fact she can easily race across
the storm-tossed and fog-ridden face
of the restless North Atlantic at a
speed of twenty-five knots per hour.
Added interest is given the feats of
this new boat because Of the fact that
at is little more than century ago
that Robert Fulton demonstrated that
steam could be successfully applied to
a vessel as motive power. 1t was in
a793 that he FIRST conceived the idea of
propeiiing . vessel thru the water by
steam power but It was not until Au-
gust, 1907, that he finally succeeded, at
seast in American waters, in perfecting
3 vessel that was q practical success.
His successful boat was called the
clermofit. in honor of the home of his
friend and patron, Chancellor Living
stone, Observation-Disclosures, and
her maiden trip was made on the Had-
son, the Rhine of America, between
the cities of New York aud Albany.
Commerce is as old IS mankind, and
the desire of men to trade aud barter
with one another is as old as the race,
and this inherent iinstinct or love of
trade and barter has led to all of mans
sriumphs: think am within the
bounds of sanity and reason when l
say that this love Of gain by trade one
with the other has, in great measure,
aaid the foundation for the great and
heroic deeds of all the great men of
earth from the dawn, almost, of crea-
ton to the present moment. Admit
ting the truth of this statement see
what vista it opens; it means that
while the love of gain was not the par
amount motive that moved men to
great deeds in art, literature, sculpture,
craftsmanship, ETC., yet the desire to
excel, the ambition to lead, has been
fostered and strengthened by mems in
tercOurse with men from other parts
of the world; it means that the ambi-
ti0ns which swayed the life Of every
painter who has perpetuated his visions
on canvas, every scniptor who has CHS
eled his .ideai in marble, every comp0s-
or WHO has set his dreams to music
that has become immortal, every ex-
piorer who has threaded the fever
tainted jungies of the tropics, every
mariner who has thrust his vessels
prov thru the ice loes of the north or
the Sargossas of the tropics, every con-
queror who has set up new empire,
every statesman who has made and un-
made the rulers Of the earth, every
orator whose impassioned eloquence
has swayed the senates of the world,
has been actnated to do his best thru
the fostering spirit of commerce
which has made it possible for the peo-
pie Of earth to become acquainted
with each Others hopes, desires and
needs.
Commercial life and intercourse
made possible. the hlustrious line of
the worries statesmen from Scion to
Blaine; rulers Of states from Caesar to
Roosevelt; soldiers from Hannibal to