This largest vessel afloat does not mark any new departure in general type, as the _Great Eastern_ did in differing from all types of construction then familiar. In outward appearance, the _Campania_, as she lies upon the water, and as seen at a sufficient distance, is just like numbers of other vessels we have all seen. Nor does her immense size at first impress the observer, because of the beautiful proportions on which she is planned. Her lines are eminently what the nautical enthusiast calls 'sweet;' and in her own class of naval art she is as perfect a specimen of architectural beauty as the finest of the grand old clippers which used to 'walk the waters as a thing of life.' The colossal size of St Peter's at Rome does not strike you as you enter, because of the exquisite proportions. And so with the _Campania_--you need to see an ordinary merchant-ship, or even a full-blown liner, alongside before you can realise how vast she is.
Yet she is only 60 feet shorter than the mammoth _Great Eastern_, and measures 620 feet in length, 65 feet 3 inches in breadth, and 43 feet in depth from the upper deck. Her tonnage is 12,000, while that of the _Great Eastern_ was 18,000; but then her horse-power is 30,000 as against the _Great Eastern's_ 7650!
This enormous development of engine-power is perhaps the most remarkable feature about these two new vessels. Each of them is fitted with two sets of the most powerful triple-expansion engines ever put together. A visit to the engine-room is a liberal education in the mechanical arts, and even to the eye of the uninitiated there is the predominant impression of perfect order in the bewildering arrangement of pipes, rods, cranks, levers, wheels, and cylinders. The two sets of engines are placed in two separate rooms on each side of a centre-line bulkhead fitted with water-tight doors for intercommunication. Each set has five inverted cylinders which have exactly the same stroke, and work on three cranks. Two of the cylinders are high-pressure, one is intermediate, and two are low-pressure. Besides the main engines, there are engines for reversing, for driving the centrifugal pumps for the condensers, for the electric light, for the refrigerating chambers, and for a number of other purposes--all perfect in appointment and finish. In fact, in these vast engine-rooms one is best able to realise not only the immense size and power of the vessel, but also the perfection to which human ingenuity has attained after generations of ceaseless toil--and yet it is only half a century since the _Britannia_ began the transatlantic race.