“The pillars between are inlaid with mirrors, framed with rosewood, and at the top and bottom are bronzed sea-shells of costly workmanship. In the centre of each are groups of allegorical figures, representing the ocean mythology of the ancients, in bronze and burnished gold. The ceiling is elaborately wrought, carved and gilded.” The vessel was steam-heated, an improvement introduced for the first time in steam-ships. The _Atlantic_ left New York on April 27, 1850, with about a hundred passengers on board and a valuable cargo. Outside Sandy Hook she met some drifting ice which damaged her paddles, and she had to proceed at reduced speed across the ocean as the weather was too tempestuous to permit of the floats being repaired. On May 8, one of her condensers gave way, and the steamer was hove-to for forty hours, after which she resumed her voyage still at reduced speed. She arrived at Liverpool on May 10. The _Pacific_ sailed from New York on May 25, and was followed by the _Arctic_, _Baltic_, and _Antarctic_. Their beam was such that they could not enter any existing docks at Liverpool, and a dock at the North End was therefore constructed for their accommodation. Special interest attached to the arrival of the _Atlantic_ owing to the presence in the river of the new Cunarder _Asia_, just built by Messrs. Steel at Greenock, and engined by Robert Napier. An opportunity was thus afforded of comparing these two representative vessels, as the _Asia_, outward bound, steamed past her rival and exchanged salutes. The _Atlantic_ and her sister ship the _Arctic_ excelled in dimensions every steam-ship hitherto built. The length was 276 feet on the keel and 282 feet on the main deck, beam 45 feet, breadth across paddle-boxes 75 feet, depth of hold 31 feet 7 inches, diameter of paddle-wheels 36 feet, diameter of cylinder 96 inches, stroke 9 feet; the side-lever engines were of 1000 horse-power, and the tonnage 2860. The saloons were 67 feet long by 20 feet wide, and the dining saloons 60 feet long by 42 feet wide.