In 1905, the German Hamburg-American Line became possessed of the _Amerika_, which with the length of 670½ feet, beam 74·6, and a tonnage of 22,225, and a moderate speed, makes her rather a rival of the White Star _Baltic_ and _Adriatic_, than of the Cunard ships or the Norddeutscher Lloyd _Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse_ and _Kaiser Wilhelm II._, and the Hamburg Company’s own fast steamship, the _Deutschland_. Although sailing under a foreign flag, she is to all intents and purposes a British ship, for she was built at Harland and Wolff’s famous Belfast yard, where the White Star ships have come into being. Her speed is 18 knots, so that she is rather faster than the latest White Star ships, although inferior to the fastest contemporary liners. Carrying a total of 4,000 passengers and crew, the _Amerika_ is one of the finest vessels, not merely in the German fleet, but in the whole world. [Illustration: THE “GEORGE WASHINGTON.” _From a Photograph. By permission of the Norddeutscher Lloyd Co., Bremen._] [Illustration: THE “BERLIN.” _From a Photograph. By permission of the Norddeutscher Lloyd Co., Bremen._] The _George Washington_, which is seen steaming ahead in the illustration herewith, was the first of the Norddeutscher Lloyd steamers to make a considerable advance on the 20,000 tons (registered) limit. In length, breadth and tonnage she was launched as the biggest of all German ships, and some of her details are not without interest. Her speed of 18½ knots is obtained by two engines with an indicated horse-power of 20,000, and her gross register is 26,000 tons. She is propelled by twin-screws, and was built of steel according to the highest German standards, with five steel decks extending from end to end, a double bottom, which is divided up into twenty-six water-tight compartments, while the ship herself is divided by thirteen transverse bulkheads which reach up to the upper deck, and sometimes to the upper saloon deck, and separate the vessel into fourteen water-tight compartments. A special feature was made in the bulkheads to render them of such a strength as to be able to resist the pressure of the water in the event of collision. The three upper decks seen in the photograph show the awning, the upper promenade, and the promenade-decks; while, as in the _Mauretania_ and her sister, and in the _Adriatic_, electric lifts are installed for the convenience of the passengers wishing to pass from one deck to the other. The four pole-masts are of steel, and have between them no fewer than twenty-nine derricks. The _George Washington’s_ engines are of the quadruple-expansion type, with two sets of four cylinders, the propellers being two three-bladed, made of bronze. The difficulty with large reciprocating engines has always been to cause them to work without giving forth considerable vibration. But the careful arrangement of the cranks of the engine so as to balance each other tends to neutralise the vibration.