civil engineers are urged to progress in dock accommodation only by shipbuilders treading on their heels. Coincident with the changes made in the dimensions and structure of vessels, there are numerous features of enhanced comfort for passengers and crew which are deserving of notice. Notably is this manifest in the arrangement of saloons and state-rooms—their appointment, lighting, and ventilation. The character of steamships for the great ocean highways in this respect is above and beyond anything which Board of Trade enactments seek to secure. The amount of spirited competition itself on those services, acts as an efficient promoter of excellence in design and equipment. It is now the prevailing fashion to appropriate that part of a steamer just before the engine and boiler hatchways for the principal saloon and first-class berthing, and it has so many advantages over the old plan of locating these apartments in the poop or after extremity of the vessel that its adoption in large steamers of the passenger-carrying trade has become all but general. Some of these advantages may be briefly enumerated. They are:—ampler and airier saloon space: the plumbness of the vessel’s sides permitting a saloon completely athwartship, which is scarcely practicable in the conventional situation aft, because of the curvature of sides; increased facilities for ventilation; purer air; freedom from the noise and vibration caused by propeller; comparative immunity from the effects of “pitching” or longitudinal oscillation. Nothing, perhaps, in connection with improved saloon accommodation strikes one so much as the increased height between decks now prevalent. While from six-and-a-half to seven-and-a-half feet was considered sufficient some years ago, it is now the practice in first-class steamers to make the height as much as from eight-and-a-half to nine-and-a-half feet. The feeling of spaciousness this change contributes to the saloons, as well as the scope it yields for architectural treatment of the walls, are not the least gratifying results of the improvement. How much the latter result has been taken advantage of in our modern passenger steamships need scarcely be told, as their architectural and decorative character is often and eloquently enlarged upon by delighted voyagers. [Illustration: FIG. 9. LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF GRAND SALOON IN _S.S. America_, SHOWING DOME-ROOF.]