These two ships also marked another advance in method of building, for the steel plates from which their sides were made were of unprecedented size, and thus it is obvious that the number of rivets was considerably smaller. Opposite page 170 we give an illustration of the _Lucania_ under way, and by comparing her with the earlier Atlantic liners, a fair idea will be obtained of the trend of steamship evolution. It will be noticed that the _Oceanic_ turtle deck has gone, for the reason that since the stern had now become at such a height from the water it was hardly necessary. The topmost deck of the _Lucania_ is the shade deck, and the one immediately below it the promenade deck; it should be noted that these two are not really part of the structure of the ship herself, but platforms superadded in much the same way as in a vastly different type of craft, the Viking ship, which, when it began to enter its transition state, had fighting platforms erected both at bow and stern so as to accommodate her men. The _Campania_ measures 600 feet (between perpendiculars), with a beam of 65 feet 3 inches, and displaces nearly 20,000 tons. It was only in the early months of 1910 that the _Lucania_, her sister, after being on fire and compelled for that reason to be flooded with water, was sold out of the Cunard Company’s service. We come now to consider the entering of fierce competition from a quarter that hitherto had not affected the development of the modern liner. We have seen that in spite of the efforts which America had put forth from time to time, the pride of the Atlantic Ocean had been British ultimately. The American-subsidised Collins Line had in the end to bow its head and yield, nor has the reorganised Inman Line (now the American Line) been a dangerous competitor in the matter of record passages. At different times first one British line of steamships pushed itself to the front, to be in turn ousted by its rival; and so the evolution of the steamship profited. But now it was to be not Britain, nor America, but Germany, which was to make a bold bid for the commercial sovereignty of Atlantic speed. Few phenomena are more notable within recent years than the sudden rise of Germany as a world power. In the realm of steamships there has been scarcely any parallel to the rapid development which that nation exhibited, so that within a remarkably short space of time she became able not merely to build her own ships, but of a size that had been exceeded only by the _Great Eastern_, and with a speed that no liner of any sort or of any nationality had ever yet attained. It is fitting, therefore, to give here a brief sketch of the manner in which this new competition originated, for to this undoubtedly is due the coming of the mammoth ships represented by the _Mauretania_ and _Lusitania_. In the future this is the direction from which the quickening factor will come, as formerly it used to come from internal steamship organisations.