Between Harwich and the Hook of Holland, the Great Eastern Railway keep up an important steamship connection, and employ in their ships not merely wireless telegraphy, but the submarine signalling which is mentioned as being a characteristic of the modern Atlantic liner. Their turbine steamer, the _St. Petersburg_--a sister ship to the same company’s _Munich_ and _Copenhagen_--which was only put into active service in 1910, began a steamship connection that is carried on entirely by turbine craft. It is, indeed, owing to the advent of the turbine that the notable improvements in our cross-channel steamers have been made within the last few years. Not only has this system obtained for the ships a greater popularity because of the absence of vibration, but it has also enabled the owners to avail themselves of the greater accommodation for cargo and passengers, as well as giving greater speed to the ships under economical conditions of working. One of the most notable cross-channel steamers is the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company’s _Ben-my-Chree_, which can do 25 knots per hour and carry 2,500 passengers. On this route the turbine has very decidedly justified itself also. A breakdown causing the disablement of the turbine steamer is as yet unknown, and it is worth noting that from the now celebrated Channel steamer _Queen_, a turbine steamer of only 8,000 horse-power, which was ordered only as recently as the year 1900, to the _Mauretania_, with her 70,000 horse-power, is a step that shows how thoroughly satisfactory the turbine has proved itself in so short a space of time. In the case of a liner a breakdown is a serious enough item, but in the case of a channel steamer it is an occurrence of sufficiently grave a nature as to be guarded against with every precaution. The chances of a shaft breaking in the case of a turbine steamer are very remote, and will probably continue to be so, with the steady nature of the working of the turbine, the worst likely accident being the breaking of one of the many blades. Moreover, the turbine has proved that it gives increased reliability to the steamship, which, in the case of the short cross-channel voyages, is a matter that cannot lightly be regarded. In the case of the _Ben-my-Chree_ just mentioned, the mean time in performing the distance from Liverpool Bar lightship to Douglas Head differed only by a minute in one season from that of the previous year, a fact that is highly significant. It is the time that is wasted in manœuvring to get alongside the quay and clearing away that detracts from the smartness of the voyage, although in this connection it may be stated that bow rudders are in use in certain cross-channel craft in order to enable this manœuvre to be accomplished with greater celerity.