Captain Williamson, the well-known steamer manager on the Clyde, was the first to order a turbine-propelled boat for commercial purposes, this being the steamer _King Edward_, built in 1901. She gave such excellent results that the _Queen Alexandra_ was ordered. The South Eastern and Chatham Company was the first railway company to order a turbine steamer, _The Queen_, 310 feet long and of 1676 tons gross, with engines of 7500 horse-power. The first ocean liners fitted with turbines were the Allan liners _Victorian_ and _Virginian_, built in 1904, each of about 10,754 gross tonnage and having turbine engines of about 12,000 horse-power. The Cunard Line built a turbine steamer in the following year, the _Carmania_, with turbines of 21,000 horse-power and of 19,524 tons gross. So satisfactory, apparently, was the experiment that the Cunard Line next ordered the _Lusitania_ and _Mauretania_ with turbine engines of 70,000 horse-power each. After the two torpedo vessels already mentioned, the Admiralty ordered the _Velox_ and _Eden_, which had additional engines for obtaining economical results at low speeds. Then came the third-class cruiser _Amethyst_, and comparative trials with sister vessels fitted with reciprocating engines showed the superior economy of the _Amethyst’s_ engines. Next the _Dreadnought_ was fitted with turbine engines. Another conclusive proof of the superiority of the turbine was afforded by the steamer _Princesse Elisabeth_ on the Ostend and Dover service, which in her first year averaged 24 knots as against the 22 knots of the _Princesse Clementine_ and _Marie Henriette_ on an average coal consumption per trip of 23·01 tons, compared with their 24·05 and 23·82 tons respectively. The turbine boat also does the trip in about 15 per cent. less time than the other two, or, “to reduce the turbine boat to the displacement and speed of the paddle-boats, and assuming that the indicated horse-power varies as the cube of the speed, the mean consumption of the _Princesse Elisabeth_ would be about 17 tons as against 24 tons in the paddle-boats, thereby showing a saving of over 25 per cent.” Many other vessels have been fitted with turbine machinery, including the royal yacht. The multiple propellers tried in some of the earlier vessels were found to be less satisfactory than single propellers on each shaft. The first in which a combination of reciprocating and turbine engines was installed was the _Otaki_ by Denny, for the New Zealand Shipping Company. [Illustration: THE “OTAKI” (NEW ZEALAND SHIPPING CO.).] CHAPTER XI STEAM-POWER AND THE NAVY