The editors of The Engineer complimented Alfred Yarrow on his paper "On balancing marine engines and the vibration of vessels." The essentially practical nature of his presentation and the experiments that he had conducted had dispelled many of the mysteries that had surrounded the subject and had also corrected some errors. The generally received theory had been that the vibrations of steamers were due to the action of the propeller blades and dozens of patents had been taken out for blade forms and proportions that were supposed to eliminate vibration. Alfred Yarrow had shown that vibration was not due to the form of the propeller as it was only necessary that the centre of the tail shaft should coincide with the centre of gravity of the screw, if this was the case, vibration in a vessel could only be due to its engines.