The Stern Part of the “Suevic” awaiting the New Bow at Southampton 296_a_ The New Bow of the “Suevic” at entrance to Dock 296_a_ Charles Dickens’s State-room on the “Britannia” 298 The Veranda Café of the “Lusitania” 300 First Class Dining Saloon of the “Adriatic” 300 Dining Saloon of the S.Y. “Liberty” 302 Gymnasium of the S.Y. “Liberty” 302 The Marconi Room on a Cunard Liner 306 STEAMSHIPS AND THEIR STORY CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In my previous book, “Sailing Ships and Their Story,” which, indeed, this present volume is meant to follow as a complement of the story of the development of the ocean carrier, I ventured to submit the proposition that a nation exhibits its exact state of progress and degree of refinement in three things: its art, its literature, and its ships; so that the development of the ship goes on side by side, and at the same rate, as the development of the State. And if this was found to be true with regard to the vessel propelled by sails, it will be seen that the same can be affirmed with no less truth in respect of the steamship. In setting out on our present intention to trace the story of the steamship from its first beginnings to the coming of the mammoth, four-funnelled, quadruple-screw, turbine liners of to-day, it is not without importance to bear the above proposition in mind. For though the period occupied by the whole story of the steamer is roughly only about a hundred years, yet these hundred years represent an epoch unequalled in history for wealth of invention, commercial progress, and industrial activity. The extraordinary development during these years, alone, not merely of our own country and colonies, but of certain other nations--of, for instance, the United States of America, of Germany, of Japan--has been as rapid as it has been thorough. Consequently, if our proposition were correct, we should expect to find that the rate of development in the ship had been commensurate. Nor have we any cause for disappointment, for as soon as we commence to reckon up the achievements made in art and literature during the nineteenth, and the first decade of the twentieth centuries, and to compare the rate of progress of the ship during this same period, it seems at first not a little difficult to realise that so much should have been accomplished in so short a time.