In the year 1879 the Atlantic competition was further accelerated by the advent of the _Arizona_, which belonged to the Guion Line. This company had been formed in 1866, and was originally known as Williams and Guion. In 1879 the _Arizona_ further reduced the Atlantic passage by eight hours, but in the same year, whilst bound eastwards, she had the misfortune to run at full speed into a great iceberg, and her bows were altogether crumpled up; she would have foundered, but her water-tight bulkhead happily kept her afloat so that the ship was able to reach St. John’s, Newfoundland, her nearest port. It was such incidents as this which caused the adoption of efficient water-tight compartments on most steamships of any size, and the influence of the British Admiralty on our national shipping was in the late ’seventies and the early ’eighties decidedly powerful. By their instructions every steamship on their list available for transport duties was to be divided up in such a manner that if any one of her compartments should be opened to the sea in calm water this loss of buoyancy would not imperil the ship’s safety. As a result the shipbuilders took the hint, and greater attention was paid to so important a point. The _Oregon_, another of the Guion Line’s famous steamships, was purchased by the Cunard Company, and showed her marvellous turn of speed by making the run from Queenstown to New York in six days, nine hours, fifty-one minutes. She distinguished herself by keeping up what was then the unheard-of average passage of six days fourteen hours. But, like the _Arizona_, this _Oregon_ was born unlucky. Off the North American coast she was run into and sunk by a sailing ship, though the passengers and mails were happily saved. The _Oregon_ had a tonnage of 7,375, and was driven by direct-acting inverted engines which developed the remarkable sum of 13,500 horse-power, and produced the equally wonderful speed of 18 knots per hour, thus earning for her the name of the “Greyhound of the Atlantic.”