Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/562

544 than the eighth of a mile (680 feet) long, of 84 feet beam, and drawing thirty feet of water at load-draught, when the weight of ship and contents amounts to over 25,000 tons. This great vessel



is driven by steam-engines of 10,000 horse-power, turning huge paddle-wheels 56 feet in diameter, and a screw-propeller having a diameter of 24 feet.

109. We are evidently fulfilling at least a part of that well-known poetical prophecy which Darwin wrote in the early days of the steam-engine, and possibly before Watt had told him of the great advance which had been produced by his inventive genius: