To the Allan Line belongs the honour of having been the first to introduce the turbine upon the Atlantic, and at the beginning of the year 1905, the _Victorian_ and _Virginian_, which had been contracted for two years earlier, began running. These two ships are employed on the Liverpool-Montreal service, and were built to be of as great a size as safe navigation of the river St. Lawrence would permit. They displace 12,000 tons each, and are fitted with Parsons triplicate turbines, driving three independent shafts and maintaining a speed of 17 knots average; but on her trials the _Virginian_ attained a speed of 19·8 knots, and the _Victorian_ 19·2 knots. Three propellers are used for steaming ahead, and two low-pressure turbines are employed for manœuvring either ahead or astern; these are provided with a supplementary turbine for going astern. When going ahead, the steam is first used in the high-pressure turbine engine and then allowed to flow therefrom to the two low-pressure turbines, after which it passes to the condensers. Owing to the turbine system the vibration is reduced to a minimum, and since it is possible, from their nature, to place the turbine engines very low in the hull, it follows that the screws also can be placed very low. The practical effect of this is that the propellers are rarely out of the water in a heavy sea, and so the objectionable “racing” disappears. The _Virginian_ soon showed that she was not merely a comfortable, but a comparatively fast ship, for she made an eastward trip in the shortest time hitherto occupied between Canada and England.