In steam practice, new problems required to be studied and resolved; challenges to our vaunted sea-lore came up that called for radical revision of older methods and ideas. Changes, as wide and drastic as the evolutions of a decade in sail, were presented in a swift succession of as many days. With eyes now turned from aloft to ahead, we retyped our seamanship to meet the altered conditions of the veer in our outlook. Unhelped, if unhindered, in our efforts, we adapted our calling to the sudden and revolutionary innovations in construction and power of the new ships. We grew sensible of gaps in our knowledge, of voids in education that our earlier handicraft had not revealed. Severed, by press of our sea-work, from the facilities for study that now offered advancement to the landsman, we sought in alert and constant practice a substitute for technical instruction. By step and stride and canter we jockeyed each new starter from the shipyards, and studied their paces and behaviour on the vexed testing courses of the open sea. If our methods were rude in trial, they settled to efficiency in service. We paced in step with the rapid developments of the shipwright's art, the not less active contrivance of the engineers. We kept no man waiting for a sea-controller to his new and untried machine: there was no whistling for a pilot on the grounds of our reaches. From oversea dredger and frail harbour tug to the magnitude of an _Aquitania_, we were ever ready to board her on the launching ways and steer her to the limits of her draught. A Hakluyt of the day would have a full measure for his enthusiasm in the shear of our keels on every sea, the flutter of our flags to all the winds. By virtue of worthy vessels and good seamanship, the Red Ensign was devoted to a world service; by good guardianship and commercial rectitude the Merchants' Service held charge of the world's wealth in transport--the burden of the ships. All nations put trust in us for sea-carriage. The Spanish onion-grower on the slopes of Valencia, the Java sugar merchants, the breeders of Plata, looked to their harbours for sight of our hulls to load their products. Greek boatmen took payment for their cases on a scrap of dingy paper; the tide-labourers of the world demanded no earnest of their fees ere setting to work--our flag was their guarantor. The incoming of our ships brought throng to the quay-sides of far seaports; the outgoing sent the prospering merchants to the bank counters, to draw value from our skill in navigation, our integrity, and sea-care. THE STRUCTURE