It is fitting that the history of the steamship should be written at this time, for if final perfection has not yet arrived, it cannot be very far distant. It is but three or four years since the _Lusitania_ and _Mauretania_ came into being, and only during the present year have they shown themselves to possess such exceptional speed for merchant ships. On the 20th of October, 1910, will be launched the _Olympic_, whose size will dominate even the _Mauretania_. Much further than a 45,000-ton ship, surely, it cannot be possible to go; and the likelihood is that with the commercial steamship’s manifested ability to steam at the rate of over thirty-one land miles per hour, we are in sight of the limitations which encompass her. As to the future of transport, changes happen so quickly, and possess so revolutionary a character, that it is hardly safe to prophesy; but it is significant that the week before this preface was written, an aeroplane succeeded in flying, in perfect ease and safety, the 150 miles which separate Albany from New York; and thus, just a century after Fulton had convinced the incredulous by traversing the same course through water in his steamship, the latest means of travelling from one place to another has caused to look insignificant the wonderful record which Fulton, in his _Clermont_, was the first to set up. If, then, as will be seen from this volume, the steamship has done so much within a hundred years, what, we may legitimately ask, will be accomplished by the airship or aeroplane before another century has come to an end? Those who have the temerity to give expression to their opinions, suggest that the steamship will ultimately be made obsolete by the flying craft. If that be a true forecast, it is perhaps as well that the steamship’s story should be told here and now whilst yet she is at her prime.