Imperial Valley Press

SPEED ON THE ATLANTIC

Hardly had the new German liner Bremen completed her record-breaking run across the Atlantic when officials of the North German Lloyd were predicting that in a short time she will be able to come across in even faster time. When the Bremen's engines are properly broken in, they assert, the liner will make the crossing in an even four days.

Meanwhile, three other nations are preparing to meet the Bremen's challenge.

The French Line promises to build a ship "bigger and faster than any ship afloat"; British ship-builders are hard at work with the same end in view, and the United States Lines are about to lay the keel of two 1000-foot liners designed to outspeed even the Bremen.

Once again, the Atlantic is the scene of a speed war. It is an exciting contest - a thing that is reminiscent of the old days just before the Civil War, when American and British ship-builders bent every effort to the job of cutting down the time between the two countries.

The clipper ships that were evolved as a result of this competition were the fastest sailing vessels ever built. Some of them made the crossing in less than two weeks; indeed, there is no telling what the clippers might ultimately have done, if the development of the steamship had not interrupted their use and put the trans-Atlantic passenger trade in the hands of the steam-driven liner.

Now the steamships are growing faster and faster; and, meanwhile, the Germans have constructed a 100-passenger flying boat that will be able, it is said, to make the crossing in a couple of days. The steamship builders might give that flying machine a thought. It may do to them what the steamers of 1860 did to the magnificent clippers.