The small steam ferry boats represented in the accompanying cut are doing service in the port of Marseilles, and the following description of them has been given by Mr. Flecher in the _Bulletin de la Société des Anciens Elèves d'Arts et Metiers_: All those who are acquainted with the Old Port of Marseilles know the inconvenience of communication between one shore and the other, and the high price of ferriage by row boats. To obviate this, Captain Advient has been struck with the happy idea of creating a cheap steam service (fare one cent), thus supplying a genuine want in the modes of locomotion of the city. The building of these ferry boats, on a system providing for the use of separate hulls, was confided to Messrs. Stapfer, De Duclos & Co., of Marseilles, whose well-known reputation was a sufficient guarantee that the problem would be successfully solved. There existed difficulties of two natures: The first of these related to the stability of boats such as this, having their engine, boiler, supply of coal, forty passengers who might all occupy one side of the vessel, a central superstructure, with roof; and, finally, all the weight centered on five feet of the deck, with nothing below to counterbalance it except the hollow hulls and two three-foot compartments, each placed toward the central portion of the hulls and designed as fresh-water reservoirs for the steam generator. The second difficulty was to obtain the best utilization possible of a screw placed in the current between the hulls and upon a shaft inclined toward the stern, that is, "stern" by analogy, for there is no distinction of fore and aft in ferry boats. [Illustration: STEAM FERRYBOATS OF THE PORT OF MARSEILLES.] The conditions of the problem were finally fulfilled to the satisfaction of all concerned, and especially to that of the public. The hulls, navicular in form and having a flat bottom, are constructed of one-tenth inch iron plate and 40x40 angle iron. Their dimensions are: Length, 33 feet; breadth, 3¼ feet; and depth, 5 feet. The internal distance between the two shells is 7¼ feet. These hulls, having absolutely water-tight decks, are connected below by tie bars of flat iron, and above by vertical stays 1 foot in length, which serve to support the floor-planks of the deck and boilerplate flooring of the engine-room. The engine-room, which is 19½ feet long by 5 feet wide, is constructed of varnished pitch-pine, with movable side-shutters of teak. The roof, of thin iron plate, is provided with a ventilator to allow of the escape of hot air. The passengers, to the number of forty or fifty, can move about freely from larboard to starboard, or from stem to stern, or seat themselves on the benches running along the inside of the guard railing on the two sides of the vessel. They are protected from rain by a roof, and from the rays of the sun by a curtain extending along the sides.