Messrs. Yarrow have succeeded in building a torpedo-boat destroyer which
will steam 301 knots, or say 35 miles, an hour. This vessel, named the Sokol,' built for the Russian government, is the fastest in the world, no other steamer having attained to 30 knots. The effect produced by the
Sokol' when under full steam was most striking. When her propellers were working at between four and five hundred revolutions a minute, "the two streams of race-water were divided by a wall of snowy spray ten or twelve feet high." No doubt the marine engineers will end by discovering means for getting a speed of 60 miles an hour in calm water, and we shall reach New York in two days. That would greatly cheapen ocean-transport. The same ship could do the journey to America and back within the week, and give the captain and crew their Sundays in Liverpool or Southampton.
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