Another peculiarity to be attended to in the management of this mighty mass is that by no possibility must she be allowed to touch the ground. Our ship will be found, I believe, if tried, to possess unusual strength: no combination of circumstances within the range of ordinary probabilities can cause such damage to her as to sink her, even if she were to be run on sharp rocks with deep water around; and I believe she might remain for months aground, exposed to the heaviest seas without serious damage. The lives of the passengers, and even the cargo generally, will be safe, almost perfectly safe, and so far she will be very different from and very superior to any vessel now afloat; but there will also be another great difference, although she may remain safely aground, she will probably remain so for a long time. If she were to ground at high water or where there is a little tide, and when she happens to be rather light of coal, and should take in any water so as to deepen her, no ordinary appliances in the power of the crew will get her off, or, at all events, not without great loss of time, and at very heavy sacrifices. Such an event in the first year of her career would probably ruin our Company, as the grounding of the ‘Great Britain’ did the Great Western Steam-Ship Company, although it proved the good qualities of that ship, and thus advanced iron ship-building. A sailor will no doubt receive with disgust and as an insult the suggestion of the possibility of his running his ship ashore. We cannot afford, however, to rest contented with this expression of feeling, natural and praiseworthy as it may be: our circumstances are totally different; and that which is considered certainly as a serious evil, but still only an evil more or less serious, would be to us fatal; it is no longer a question of degree of injury--it is death. I have had some costly experience; I have had to do with many steamers--several remarkable for their size and their value, according to the ideas of the time, and two of them each in their day considered Leviathans, more wondered at than even ours, and exciting much more anxiety on the part of their promoters, and there was as much care taken in the selection of commanders as I ask you to take now; nevertheless both of these, to the ruin of the Company in one case, and almost every other steamer I have had anything to do with, has not merely touched, but been aground. Not a season hardly passes without a case of even a Queen’s ship going ashore, although navigated by men educated for the purpose, with the advantage of every appliance hitherto thought necessary and sufficient, and with fearful responsibility attached to them. All these are published cases known to the world; and if the log books