Sewell and Faron, chief engineers of the United States Navy. The latter of these two gentlemen acted as chief engineer of the Company. The boilers were arranged with double furnaces, and lower water spaces connected by a row of vertical tubes, around which the heated gases circulated, with a hanging bridge or plate, which checked their otherwise rapid flow to the funnel, and rendered the combustion more perfect. The average consumption per 24 hours by the ARCTIC was 83 tons anthracite coal, attaining an average speed of 316·4 knots per day. Her maximum consumption was 87 tons, with a speed of 320 knots in 24 hours. These vessels were constructed so utterly regardless of expense that to complete them it was found the cost would be very greatly in excess of the estimates. The Government was therefore appealed to for assistance. The appeal was generously responded to. The United States Government not only made an advance to the Company while the ships were being built, but also released it from its obligation to build a fifth vessel as originally contemplated, and increased the subsidy from $19,250 to $33,000 per voyage. But for these benefits increased speed was demanded. “We must have speed,” declared Mr. Bayard, during the debate in Congress, “extraordinary speed—a speed with which they (the Collins steamships) can overtake any vessel which they pursue, and escape from any vessel they wish to avoid; they must be fit for the purpose of a cruiser, with armaments to attack your enemy (if that enemy were Great Britain) in her most vital part, her commerce.” Happily the contest was a commercial and not a national one, and the Collins steamers were never required for the purposes of Mr. Bayard’s hypothesis. They did, however, engage (and for a time with apparent success) in a great contest with the Cunard Company for the commercial maritime supremacy of the Atlantic. The ATLANTIC, the first of the Collins Line of steamers to cross the ocean, arrived at Liverpool on the 10th May, 1850. The breadth of beam of this vessel and her sister ships was so great that they were unable to enter any existing docks at Liverpool, and a dock at the north end of the port was constructed specially for their accommodation. The arrival of the ATLANTIC excited very great interest, which was increased rather than lessened by the presence at Liverpool of the ASIA R.M.S., just built for the Cunard Line, and which left for New York on the following Saturday week. [Illustration: ASIA. Cunard Steamship Co.] The following description[19] of the interior decorations of the ATLANTIC may be taken as a general description of the whole of the Collins steamers, and will be read with interest:—