The compound engine, by which steam is made to do double duty, is one of the most important of recent improvements in marine engineering, being the means of largely increasing the motive power and decreasing the consumption of fuel. The successful application of this system to ocean steam navigation is usually attributed to Mr. John Elder, of the above-named firm, who introduced it in some of the steamers of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company as early as 1856.[16] But it did not come into general use until some years later. The Admiralty, recognizing the importance claimed for the discovery, resolved to test its value, in 1863, by sending three ships of similar size on a voyage from Plymouth to Madeira, two of them being fitted with the ordinary engines of the day, and the third, the _Constance_, with Elder’s compound engine. The result placed the superiority of the compound engine beyond question, and led up to the triple and quadruple expansion engine which has revolutionized the ship-building and shipping interests; hence the enormous cargoes carried by ships of the _Pennsylvania_ type, with a moderate consumption of fuel and the lowering of ocean freight rates. Before taking leave of the Cunard Line, it may not be out of place to mention that an employee of that line has the distinction of having crossed the Atlantic more frequently than any other man. One is apt to think of his own voyages—thirty-five or forty—as a tolerably fair showing, but that is as nothing compared with other landsmen. On one occasion the writer sat next to a fine old French gentleman from Quebec who was then making his hundredth voyage; he was an octogenarian. Some years later a Montreal merchant, nearly a quarter of a century younger, informed me that he had crossed the ocean _one hundred and eighty_ times! Taking his years into account, surely he must be entitled to wear the blue ribbon. As to sailors, an English newspaper recently offered a prize of £10 to the man who could prove that he had crossed the Atlantic oftenest. The prize was awarded to Captain Brooks, of Alaska, who had made seven hundred trips. In the meantime, however, it transpired that the distinction was due to another “old salt,” whose record far outran that of Captain Brooks, but whose modesty prevented him from applying for the prize. The real champion is George Paynter, well known throughout England and America as “the Old Man of the Sea,” who recently completed his _eight hundred and fourth voyage_ across the Atlantic. Paynter is the officer in charge of the wines and liquors on board the SS. _Etruria_. He is one of the most remarkable men afloat to-day. He has been forty-eight years at sea, of which forty-five have been spent continuously in the service of the Cunard Company, and in all that time he has never encountered either a shipwreck or a cyclone. He is now seventy-five years old, hale and hearty as ever, and this he