1 2 Book of Steamships 



take them all in as we go along. The 

 dates and names on that tree indicate 

 the more important developments. 



Now for the story proper, but not 

 beginning, as you would perhaps expect, 

 at the first date on the family tree. 



I think first we ought to trace very 

 briefly, from the very earliest point, the 

 manner in which the ship had come 

 along to the point when she was to 

 take aboard the new and powerful agent 

 of steam. Then we must just look, for 

 the moment, at the manner in which the 

 steam engine had come along to the 

 point when it was ready for the ship. 

 Then, from those converging points, we 

 shall go steadily along to see how the 

 steamship grew up both on the mercantile 

 and the naval side. 



How did the first ship come? Here 

 is a theory. Let us suppose a venture- 

 some boy is watching a log floating down 

 a stream. He swims out to it and gets 

 astride, and time after time he is thrown 



