Nothing is more wonderful than the launching of such a vessel. Imminent peril seems to attend the operation; she must topple over, thinks the uninitiated observer, or if she succeeds in reaching the water, she must plunge against the opposite bank of the narrow river. But at the appointed time she glides into the water as smoothly as an eel, and once afloat she is held in check by cables attached to the shore. Her engines have got to be put on board, and fully six months more elapse before she is ready for sea. If she is complete within two years of the day the contract for her was awarded, her builders have done well. Let us now look at the “plant” which is necessary for building such a ship, and to see this in perfection we will visit Fairfield, which divides honors with the great ship-yard of Messrs. James & George Thomson, at Clydebank. IV. A wonderful place is Fairfield. When a ship is taken in hand for construction the design for each and every part is proceeded with simultaneously. It is not the keel first, then the frames, then the reverse frames, then the flooring, and so on, as it is in smaller ship-yards. Keel, frames, flooring are put in hand together, and the hull plates are ready before the keel is in position. Simultaneously, too, the sawmill is preparing the planks which are to cover the steel decks: the joiners are at work on the saloon and cabins; the upholsterers are cutting and stitching the brocades, plushes, and silks which are so freely used in modern ocean steamers; the chain-maker is forging the cables, and each department is busying itself with its own share, conscious that what it produces will presently be sought to take its place in the rapidly progressing whole. How rapid the progress is may be judged from the fact that on August 14, 1885, the steel intended for a North German Lloyd steamer began to enter the yard, and exactly one month later the ship was in frame with keelsons and beams in position, and the plating for the hull, rolled to waterline shape, lying alongside. The works cover nearly seventy-four acres, and lie on the south side of the Clyde, about three miles from Glasgow, with which city they are connected by a continuous chain of docks, warehouses, and other ship-yards. Not very long ago this great inclosure was arable land attached to a comfortable mansion which still retains a few vestiges of its former dignity. But now the verdure has been trampled down and the face of the earth is hidden by paving-stones and iron rails. The river is inky, and the smoke lying in a brown fog over-head is ever being replenished from the high chimneys of the neighborhood.