Genre:

Letter, Travelogue

Subjects:

Steamships, Machinery

    Relates that the question whether it is 'possible to increase the speed at which the Atlantic is crossed without destroying the comfort of the passengers' is one 'on which my fellow travellers had some very decided opinions. They reported that the Lucania and Campania, which are driven by engines of fully double the horse-power of our vessel the Columbia, produced such a vibration that nervous persons suffered more from nervous prostration than they did from sea-sickness [....] I confess I am very dubious as to the advantages of increasing the horse-power on board an Atlantic liner until science has discovered some means of decreasing the vibration of the engines' (411–12).