_From a Photograph. By permission of the Cunard Steamship Co._] One of the most important events of the ship’s life is her trial trip. Before this occurs the ship’s bottom must be cleaned, for a foul underwater skin will deaden the speed, and give altogether erroneous data. The weather should be favourable also, the sea calm, and the water not too shallow to cause resistance to ships of high speed, while a good steersman must be at the helm so as to keep the ship on a perfectly straight course. Around our coasts at various localities are noticeable posts erected in the ground to indicate the measured mile. To obtain the correct data as to the speed of the ship, she may be given successive runs in opposite directions over this measured mile; a continuous run at sea, the number of revolutions being counted during that period, and a continuous run past a series of stations of known distances apart, the times at which these are passed being recorded as the ship is abreast with them. For obtaining a “mean” speed over the measured mile, one run with the tide and one against the tide supply what is required. During these trials, the displacement and trim of the ship should be as nearly as possible those for which she has been designed. But besides affording the data which can only show whether or not the ship comes up to her contract, these trials are highly valuable as affording information to the builder for subsequent use, in regard both to the design of the ship herself and the amount of horsepower essential for sending her along at a required speed. The amount of coal consumption required is also an important item that is discovered. This is found as follows: Let there be used two bunkers. The first one is not to be sealed, but the latter is. The former is to be drawn upon for getting up steam, taking the ship out of the harbour, and generally until such time as she enters upon her trial proper. This first bunker is then sealed up, and the other one unsealed, and its contents alone used during the trial. After the trial is ended, the fires being left in ordinary condition, the second bunker is again sealed up, and the first bunker drawn upon. By reckoning up the separate amounts it is quite easy afterwards to determine the exact quantity which the ship has consumed during a given number of knots in a given time. Finally, after every detail has been completed, the ship is handed over to her owners and steams away from the neighbourhood of her birth. Presently she arrives at her port, whence she will run for the next ten or twenty years, and before long she sets forth with her first load of passengers, mails and cargo on her maiden trip across the ocean. To begin with, she may not establish any new records for speed; for a ship takes time to find herself, and her officers to understand her individualities. “Know your ship” is one of the mottoes which an ambitious officer keeps ever before him, and if this is true on the