In 1866 another competitor appeared on the North Atlantic. The fate of the Collins and Galway Lines did not deter Mr. S. B. Guion from inaugurating a rival service to that maintained by the Cunard and Inman Lines, and for a time it seemed as if he would be successful in wresting from the splendid vessels of these companies the premier position on the Atlantic. The steamships which he placed on the service between Liverpool and New York were at that period superior in size, speed, and luxury to any of their competitors. He started the service with the _Manhattan_, and thus inaugurated in 1866 what may be called the great race of the greyhounds of the Atlantic. The _Manhattan_ was built by the Palmer Company of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and was the first of seven steamers comprising the line. Her length was 343 feet, her beam 42 feet 6 inches, and her depth 28 feet, and her register was 2866 tons. She had accommodation for 72 passengers in the first class, and 800 in the second class, and besides taking 1000 tons of coal could carry 1500 tons of cargo. A feature of this vessel was the attention paid to the comfort of the second-class passengers, the cabins for this class being on the main deck and thoroughly ventilated, wherein they showed a marked improvement on the many other vessels carrying emigrants. She was fitted with low-pressure inverted direct-acting surface condensing engines, designed by Messrs. J. Jordan and Co. These had cylinders of 60 inches in diameter, with a piston stroke of 42 inches. The _Chicago_ and the _Merrimac_, sister ships, followed from the same builders. The _Chicago_ was wrecked in a fog on the rocks near the entrance to Cork Harbour, and, a contrast to some of the disasters to Atlantic liners, not a life was lost, the whole of the passengers and crew, numbering 130, being landed by the ship’s boats within an hour of the accident. The earlier Guion liners were brig-rigged steamers, and some of them carried the new American double topsails on both masts. Other boats which formed a part of the earlier fleet of the Guion Line were the _Nebraska_, _Minnesota_, _Colorado_, _Idaho_, and _Nevada_. In 1870 these were augmented by the _Wyoming_ and _Wisconsin_, also built and engined by Messrs. Palmer. These were each 366 feet long, 43 feet broad, 34 feet deep, and of 3238 tons register. Among other distinctive features they had the first compound engines on the transatlantic route. These had one vertical high-pressure cylinder of 60 inches in diameter, and one double-trunk horizontal low-pressure cylinder of 120 inches in diameter, both working on the same crank, and having a stroke of 42 inches. Great expectations as to speed were entertained when the _Montana_ and _Dakota_, from the Palmer yards, were brought into the service in 1872. They exhibited a new design in hull and machinery as they had an abnormal slope of side, flush steel plating, and water-tube boilers. These vessels each