A statement in the Portsmouth Evening News on Tuesday to
the effect that the Admiralty had resolved to build an experimental motor-driven battleship without boilers or smoke-stacks has led to a good deal of sensational comment in the Press, the new departure being taken to foreshadow the superseding of 'Dreadnoughts' and the who'esale " scrapping " of existing navies. We have never been dis- posed to invest the 'Dreadnought' type with the attribute of finality, but in this case it would seem that the anticipation of our contemporaries is somewhat inclined to extravagance. It appears that experiments with suction gas-engines have for a long time been conducted on the Clyde and at Portsmouth with results which warrant the expectation that the Admiralty before long will put an engine of this type into a destroyer or small cruiser. The advantages claimed for the new system are threefold,—the gas producer being lighter than the boiler and the machinery less complicated, while a saving in fuel and space would also be effected. It is interesting to learn that the Hamburg-Amerika Linie has ordered a vessel of considerable size to be fitted with internal combustion engines.
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