Wilhelm II._ The fish-tanks are placed on the awning deck, where ocean passengers are able to have the singular experience of catching alive at sea such fresh-water fish as trout, carp, pike and tench. The ventilation of a steamship also presents a problem that is not always capable of easy solution. Indeed, ship-ventilation presents difficulties that do not arise in the case of shore-buildings, and this is to an extent due to the fact that there is only a limited space available for the ventilating apparatus. Mechanical fans are much employed for both the stokehold and the quarters of the passengers, being driven by electric motors. The efficient ventilation of the store-rooms, which contain nowadays such quantities of perishable foods, is also effected by this means. On cattle-ships, especially in hot climates; in giving air to the holds of grain ships, and, in fact, on the steamship generally, a thoroughly capable ventilating arrangement has long since been found to be a necessity rather than a luxury. But there is a difficulty with regard to the ventilators themselves on board ship. If they are left open for the air, it is also possible for some fool or criminal to throw down a lighted match or cigarette-end, and so ignite dangerous vapour that may be below deck. After the disastrous fire on the liner _Sardinia_ when off Malta, in 1909, the Board of Trade inquiry made clear the cause of the catastrophe, namely that inflammable matter had succeeded in reaching the cargo space where chemical action had generated dangerous vapours. There was only one way in which fire could have reached this dormant danger, and that was by means of the ventilators. The reader will probably recollect that the ship was carrying Moorish pilgrims at the time, and that they had been cooking food at one of their braziers, and some believe that a hot cinder was blown down a ventilator and so arrived in the hold, with the result that is now common knowledge. The possibility of such a thing occurring again, however, is now obviated by a patent weather-proof ventilator, which is so constructed that access to the holds cannot be reached by anything else than air. Neither rain nor sea can get down, still less any inflammable matter. Thus, one by one, problems arise to thwart the hand of man, but only to be overcome by the latter through patience and the knowledge which comes after much thought and actual experience. Not merely in seaworthiness, nor in the matter of speed, has the steamship reached what even the most blasé must call the limit, but the same enterprising spirit which has brought this about has also provided that comfort is also of an importance that demands the most detailed attention. Whether in return for all this care and trouble the passenger is proportionately grateful is another question altogether. INDEX _Aaron Manby_, the, 132 _A. L. Shotwell_, the, 260 Abell, Prof. W. S., 311 Aberdeen Line, 216 _Acadia_, the, 107