About five years after the birth of the _Teutonic_ the newspapers recorded, in May, 1894, that the _Lucania_, sister ship to the _Campania_, and one of the newest Cunarders, had performed the journey across the Atlantic in 5 days, 13 hours, and 28 minutes. Her average speed was 22¼ knots, or 25·7 land miles per hour, marking one of the quickest runs then ever recorded; and about the same time came the news that the P. & O. steamer _Himalaya_ had completed a mail transit from Bombay of 12½ days, and as her voyage to Bombay had been just over 13 days—the best outward passage—she had completed a round mail transit to Bombay and back, excluding stoppages, of 25½ days. A little later, in the same year, the torpedo-boat destroyer, _Hornet_, built by Messrs. Yarrow & Co., of Poplar, for the British Navy, achieved, it is said, about 27 knots; that is, roughly speaking, near to 29 or 30 miles an hour, which speed proclaimed her to be then one of the fastest steamships in the world. She was fitted with the Yarrow water-tube boilers, which are both light and strong, while the consumption of coal was said to be remarkably small. She has two sets of triple-expansion inverted engines. Again, a short time later, Messrs. Thorneycroft, of Chiswick, obtained similar results with the _Daring_, another boat of the same kind built for the British Government, and fitted with the Thorneycroft improved water-tube boilers. These, it is claimed, will raise steam from cold water in fifteen minutes. She passed the measured mile on the Maplin at the high speed of 29¼ miles an hour. In the same summer a Company put on a fine steamer for service on the Thames and the English Channel, called _La Marguerite_, which developed, it is said, a speed of 25 miles an hour, which would make her one of the fastest passenger vessels then afloat. Another Company has also a noteworthy vessel running on the Estuary of the Thames—viz., the _London Belle_, plying from London Bridge to Clacton-on-Sea. She is a triple-expansion paddle boat, and the first river steamer fitted with three crank triple-expansion paddle engines. She was built by Denny of Dumbarton, and can develop a speed of 19½ knots—_i.e._, twenty-three statute miles per hour, and is worked with great economy of coal consumption. An example of a quadruple-expansion engine steamer may be found in the _Tantallon Castle_, one of the newest vessels for voyaging to South Africa. She is 456 feet long, over 50 broad, with a gross tonnage of 5636. She is fitted with quadruple-expansion engines of 7500 horse-power, and the stoke holes are well ventilated by large fans speeding round with great swiftness. Improvements in steamship building had gone steadily on; and it is safe to say that a pound of coal, after the compounding principle came fully into use, did four or five times the work it accomplished before high pressure engines were fully utilised.