* * * * * In these days of large shipments it does not usually pay owners to send ships of small tonnage on long sea voyages. Few steamers of less than five or six hundred tons make voyages across the Atlantic, for instance. Time was, and not so long ago, when a five-hundred-ton clipper sailed halfway round the world, but steam and steel have made deep-sea cargo ships much larger than they were, and the smaller fry are kept in the coasting trades or busy themselves in the Mediterranean or other more or less landlocked waters. These “coasters” seem to be as diverse in design as naval architects are capable of producing. Every coast has developed its own particular type, although, of course, the fundamentals of their construction are basic and permit of little change. Many of them cross the North Sea, and consequently must be seaworthy, for the North Sea has a habit of being rough. The Irish Sea is filled with them—of many shapes and sizes. European ports seem always crowded with these little ships, which steam about their business with a sort of jaunty cocksureness that is amusing in smooth waters. But they lose that jauntiness when they poke their noses into the ocean swells, and as they roll and pitch along their way they have a worried but determined air. Europe is the home of more of them, perhaps, than all of the rest of the world combined. America uses schooners or sends out ocean-going tugs with long tows of ancient ships once proud under their own canvas, but now converted into barges with stubby masts and sawed-off bowsprits. [Illustration: A TURRET STEAMER _These strange vessels are comparatively rare, and seem to be passing away entirely._] Now and then one sees an ocean-going car ferry, carrying trains of box cars across some narrow arm of the sea. A notable one of these—the _Henry M. Flagler_—runs from Key West to Havana, carrying American freight trains to Cuba and Cuban trains back, in order that the freight need not be handled at each end: from car to ship, and again from ship to car. The tourist, too, is sure, sooner or later, to travel on fast express steamers that cross similar narrow straits. The cross-channel steamers between Calais and Dover, the small ships from Copenhagen to Norway and Sweden, and others, are of this type. Their runs are short, and their schedules often are set to meet trains. Consequently, they are powerful, speedy, and sometimes most uncomfortable. But being meant for passengers, they are attractive, in their way. Sturdy, self-reliant, fast—they are perfectly adapted to the work that they perform.