The passenger accommodation is similar to that on the latest Atlantic Liners, a special feature being the large number of private cabins for two passengers. The ships are fitted with electric light, and all latest passenger comforts, including dining, smoking, and ladies’ saloons, and separate sleeping berths. The vessels running on the Harwich-Antwerp route are similar to those on the Hook of Holland service. In common with all Railway Companies’ steamers, the Company’s vessels sail under the British flag, and are subject to the British Board of Trade stringent regulations as to safety and life-saving appliances. [Illustration: Steamship] CHAPTER XXV. Turbine Steamers.—TURBINIA.—KING EDWARD.—QUEEN ALEXANDRA.—The QUEEN.—The EMERALD. THE latest development of the marine engine is the Marine Steam Turbine, the invention of the Hon. C. A. Parsons, F.R.S., brother of the present Earl of Rosse, and a son of the builder of the famous “Birr” telescope, the largest reflecting telescope ever built. The first vessel ever fitted with the new type of engine was appropriately named the TURBINIA. This vessel is only 100 feet long by 9 feet beam and of a total displacement of 44½ tons, but she is some ten knots faster than any boat afloat of the same dimensions. Although the weight of her main engines is only about 4 tons, and the total weight of machinery, screws, and shafting, tanks, etc., is only 22 tons, she develops the enormous power of 2,100 I.H.T., being almost 100 H.P. per ton of machinery. Prof. Ewing, in April, 1895, made some trials of the TURBINIA on the Tyne, the highest speed then recorded being 32·75 knots, but in June of the same year a speed of 34½ knots was obtained at Cowes. Three turbines are used for driving the vessel—high pressure, intermediate and low pressure. Each turbine driving direct on to a separate propeller shaft. Reversing is obtained by means of one or more separate turbines connected to the same shafts as the propelling turbines and working in a vacuum when the boat is going ahead. Several torpedo destroyers and three yachts have been fitted with Parsons’ turbine engines. The first mercantile vessel to be so fitted was the KING EDWARD, built by Messrs. Denny Brothers, Dumbarton, in 1901. On her trial trip she attained a speed of 20½ knots, and during her first season on the Firth of Clyde (1901) she sailed 12,116 knots in 79 days on a coal consumption of 1,429 tons, at an average speed of 18½ knots per hour. So satisfied were her owners with her, that they gave an order to the same builders and engineers for a somewhat larger vessel for the following season.