The _City of Paris’s_ great rival came with the launching of the Cunard Company’s steamship _Russia_, which is here illustrated, and began running across the Atlantic in 1867. But though the latter’s quickest passage from New York to Queenstown was eight days twenty-four minutes, the _City of Paris_, in 1867, crossed in eight days four hours, which at the time had broken the record, though the _City of Brussels_ reduced it still further to under eight days. The _Russia_ was another Clyde-built boat, and measured 358 feet long, 43 feet broad, and nearly 28 feet deep, having a gross tonnage of 2,960, and an indicated horse-power of 2,800. Her average hourly speed was 13 knots on a coal consumption of 90 tons per day. She was, of course, built of iron and had a single screw--two characteristics which practically all the crack Atlantic liners possessed from about 1862 until the end of 1883, if we except the Cunard _Servia_, which was launched in 1881, although the Allan liner _Buenos Ayrean_ had been the first steel ship on the Atlantic. During this period the liner was steadily adapting herself, her design, her engines, and her build, to meet the increase of experience gained at sea, and the increase of knowledge which shipbuilders and engineers were accumulating was in readiness for the continuity of advance. In 1881, after a period of much usefulness and great popularity among passengers, the _Russia_ was sold to the Red Star Line, who lengthened her, changed her direct-acting engines to compound engines, and named her the _Waesland_. But the _Russia_ was not the first screw-ship possessed by the Cunard Company. Already I have mentioned that though this line had introduced the screw-steamer into their fleet, it had not met with the reception it had expected, and for a time a return had been made to the paddle-wheel. It was the _China_, which had begun running in 1862 to New York, that helped to convince those who were prejudiced against the newer form of propulsion. She was 326 feet long, and was driven by a type of surface-condensing engine geared down to the propeller shaft by means of tooth-gearing after the manner already described, her engines being of the oscillating kind.