One voyage of this great ship costs about $45,000, and even at that heavy expense, she is a profit earner, so great is the volume of transatlantic travel and so ready are people to pay for speed and luxury.

Her coal alone costs $5,000 a trip, and the expenses of the table, laundry, etc., equal those of the most luxurious hotel.
But will ever these great liners, these huge masses of steel, guided by electricity and sped by steam, build up anew the race of American sailors?
Who shall say now?
To-day they are manned by Scandinavians and officered, in the main, by the seamen of the foreign nations whose flags they float.
But the American is an adaptable type.

He at once attends upon changing conditions and conquers them.

He turned from the sea to the railroads when that seemed to be the course of progress; he may retrace his steps now that the pendulum seems to swing the other way.

And if he finds under the new regime less chance for the hardy topman, no opportunity for the shrewd trader to a hundred ports, the gates closed to the man of small capital, yet be sure he will conquer fate in some way.