After all, the Atlantic and the other oceans were made by the Great Designer as barriers between separate continents, and although we speak of them casually as rather of the nature of a herring-pond, and build our big ships to act as ferries, yet are we not flying in the face of Nature, and asking for trouble? In the fight between Man and Nature, it is fairly plain on which side victory will eventually come, in spite of a series of clever dodges which throughout history man has conceived and put into practice for outwitting her. You can fool her very well in many ways for part of the time; but you cannot do this for ever in every sphere. When we read of fine, handsome, well-found modern liners going astray in the broad ocean, or of excellent, capable little cross-channel steamships foundering between port and port, without any living witnesses to tell how it all happened, we have a reminder that the ways of man are clever beyond all words, but that Nature is cleverer still. What the future of the steamship will be no one can tell. Already ship-builders profess themselves capable of turning out a monster up to 1,000 feet in length. But whether this will come about depends on the courage of the great steamship lines, the state of the financial barometer, and any improvements and inventions which the marine engineer may introduce in the meantime. Perhaps the future rests not with the steam, but the gas engine: we cannot say. It is sufficient that we have endeavoured to show what a century and but little longer has done in that short time for the steamship. Sufficient for the century is the progress thereof. CHAPTER VIII SMALLER OCEAN CARRIERS AND CROSS-CHANNEL STEAMERS Although it is true, as I have already pointed out, that the North Atlantic has been the cockpit wherein the great steamship competition has been fought out, yet it is not to that ocean alone that all the activity has been confined. Because of the limitations which the Suez Canal imposes it is not possible to build steamships for the Eastern routes of such enormous tonnage as are customary for the North American passages.