The trial of the last experiment in shipbuilding may be
looked for in a few weeks. Mr. Wynan's steam yacht, commonly known as the "Cigar Ship," is now nearly ready for launching, and a very high rate of speed is anticipated. Her construction is certainly strange, even in these dap of audacious innovation. She is 256 feet long, and her section amidships is a perfect circle 16 feet in diameter, from which she tapers away fore and aft to two fine points. The engines are of great power, no less than eight indicated horse-power to every ton burden, and the screws, one at each end, are four feet greater in diameter than the greatest breadth of the vessel. At each point a length of 16 feet revolves with the screw. The exterior surface is constructed with the greatest possible smoothness, so as to present the minimum of resistance by friction, all the rivets being countersunk. Hull, engines, furnaces, boilers, and screws are all constructed on entirely new principles, and there seems a real prospect of her attaining a speed more worthy of the age than the miserable 15 miles an hour, which is the greatest pace of our quickest sea- going steamers. The comfort of human beings on board is another question altogether. It i8 feared by many that the small deck fixed on the top of the cylinder will be washed by the waves from end to end.
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