Steam Power m maintaining a Ferry. 61 



on it, have become nearly synonimous and convertible terms. 

 There are two ways, however, in which steam may be thus em- 

 ployed, and it would be interesting to determine which of them 

 is the best. An engine may be embarked in a large boat, fitted 

 to receive passengers and goods ; and this method has exclusive- 

 ly been adopted, as yet, in this country. Or it may be embark- 

 ed in a tug-boat, and employed to tow over large passage ves- 

 sels, given up entirely to the reception of freights. It is be- 

 lieved that this last is very much the better way ; and it may 

 be observed, as presumptive evidence of this, that it has lately 

 been introduced on a great scale, and as a great improvement, 

 in America. All the reasons, however, for thinking so, have 

 not yet been brought together on paper ; nor the subject, con- 

 sequently, been considered in the detail which its importance 

 seems to merit. And an attempt to do this will now therefore 

 be made. 



It may be proper to premise, that the precise system thus 

 brought under consideration is the following : Two tug-boats 

 of great power to be kept ; and several, perhaps on a principal 

 ferry as many as six, decked passage vessels of different sizes, 

 but all properly equipped for the comfortable accommodation of 

 passengers, horses, carriages, &c. The first to be plied, one at 

 a time, unless when extraordinary circumstances of weather or 

 passage require both ; the last to be used, one or more, 

 large or small, as the same circumstances may direct. And 

 the following are the principal reasons which at present occur 

 in favour of such an establishment. 



1. Its superior economy to any thing yet devised is very 

 striking. A large steam-boat, with a powerful engine, cannot 

 be constructed much under L. 4000 ; the Dundee boats cost 

 L. 4500 ; the Burntisland ones, I believe, above L. 5000 ; and, 

 if one is kept constantly plying, there must be two ; if two, 

 there must be three, to constitute an efficient establishment any- 

 where. But the best steam-tugs need not cost above L. 2000, 

 nor passage vessels above L. 300 each ; so that two of the first, 

 and several of the last, would not, all together, much exceed 

 (me of any of the above boats. And that they would be more 



