Our last illustration before we say good-bye to the large sailing ship is the _Queen Margaret_ in Fig. 79. This is a steel, four-masted barque. She was built in 1893 by Messrs. A. McMillan & Son, Ltd., at Dumbarton. Her registered tonnage is 2144, her length 275 feet, her beam 42·2 feet, and her depth 24 feet. The photograph was taken only the other day from a passing vessel off Cape Horn. Most modern sailing ships of any size are now four masters; but, omitting entirely the large seven-masted schooners of America, there are a few square-rigged ships with five masts. When that is so they are named thus, reading from forward to aft: foremast, mainmast, middle, mizzen, and jigger. It is a circumstance all too true that, owing to the enormous advance of steam, both seamen and seamanship are nowadays hard to find in our country. The best deep-sea sailing-men are the Germans, who own the biggest five-masted sailing ships afloat. The _Potosi_, for instance, with five masts and belonging to Hamburg, is one of the very largest sailing ships ever launched. It is an undeniable fact that this ship has made eleven consecutive voyages between Hamburg and Peru in the average time of five months and twenty days, including stay in harbour, making an average rate of travel while at sea of eleven knots per hour, and it is not surprising to hear that this now stands as the world’s record for the deep-sea sailing ship. The largest sailing ship afloat is also a German five-master, the _Preussen_. Built of steel in 1902 by Messrs. J. C. Tecklenborg at Geestemünde, she is 407·8 feet long, 53·6 feet broad, and 27·1 feet deep, and is ship-rigged. Between this ultra-modern craft and that quaint prehistoric specimen we saw from the Egyptian jar in Fig. 3 what little connection is there, save for the one solitary fact that both depend on water for their buoyancy and on wind for their propulsion! For not only has wood disappeared as the material for ribs and skin, but chain is now used for topsail sheets and slings. (Slings are used to suspend the lower yards, the upper yards being sent down when necessary). Spars and masts are made of steel, wire has taken the place of much of the rope that was used. Shrouds and stays are of wire, rigging screws are used instead of lanyards and of dead-eyes. All the brace-pendants except the lower ones are of wire, even to the royal and skysail braces, so that the greater part of the rigging of a ship is now done in harbour ashore by skilled mechanics. The result is that “marlin-spike seamanship” is fast disappearing and getting under way to join the spritsail, oak and hemp of other days. Only among the somewhat diverse class of fishermen, yachtsmen, and the seafaring men from Scandinavia and up the Baltic, does it survive with any outward signs of life at all.