JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
And here we have another in the short but interesting series, “Ships in the Skyline”, a data visualization and creative display of information of high order and somewhat cross-species order. (Others in this series can be found by searching the title in the Google search box at right.) This example appears in Scientific American on September 19, 1904, and shows the newest (yet to be named) Cunard Steamship Company fleet addition, a monster 800′ long and with 75,000 horsepower. It is placed side-by-side to Trinity Church, which was the tallest structure in Manhattan for decades, and nearly rises to that height; in the center panel the new ship (is this to be the Lusitania?) is place on end next to and dwarfing the Park Row Building, which was the world’s largest office building in 1904. The images do press and get their point across very well, I think, in trying have the general reader understand the enormous size of the new “Cunarder” in terms of something that is known, making the stand-alone mass of the new ship more understandable in terms measurement of some other well known thing.
And other issue celebrating the massive power of the new Cunard ships, this from December 15, 1906 Scientific American front cover, about two years later:
