boilers, it seems a pity to be content with the lesser speed, more
particularly as the vessel is well designed and the engines efficient.

[Illustration: THE NEW BRITISH CRUISER BLAKE.]

Before dealing with the engines and their trials, it may be stated
that the vessel is of 9000 tons displacement at 25 ft. 9 in. mean
draught. Her length is 375 ft. and her beam 65 ft. She was built at
Chatham, and the armament consists of two 92 in. 22-ton breech-loading
guns, ten 6-in. 5-ton guns and sixteen 3-pounder quick-firing, and
eight machine guns, with torpedo launching carriages and tubes. The
propelling engines were manufactured by Messrs. Maudslay Sons & Field,
Lambeth. They were designed to develop 13,000 horses with natural, and
20,000 with forced draught. They consist of four distinct sets of
triple expansion inverted cylinder engines, and occupy with boilers,
etc., nearly two-thirds of the length of the ship. They are placed in
four separate compartments, two sets being coupled together on the
starboard and port sides respectively for driving each screw. There
are four high pressure cylinders, 36 in. in diameter; four
intermediate cylinders, 52 in.; and four low pressure cylinders, 80
in.; with a stroke of 4 ft. Each set of engines has an air pump 33 in.
in diameter and 2 ft. stroke, and a surface condenser having 12,800
tubes and an aggregate surface of 2250 square feet, the length of the
tubes between the tube plates being 9 ft. There is also in each
compartment one centrifugal circulating pump driven by a small
independent engine, of the diameter of 3 ft. 9 in., and capable of
pumping from the bilge as well as the sea. The screw propellers are 18
ft. 3 in. in diameter with a mean pitch of 24 ft. 6 in.

Steam is furnished by six main double-ended boilers, having four