THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 113 



although only by a few hours. The competition for the honour of successfully accomplishing 

 this voyage, between the respective owners and commanders of these vessels, involves less of 

 reputation than is generally believed. It is nearly twenty years since the ' Savannah/ a steam 

 boat built and equipped in the port of New York, made a voyage to Europe and returned. If 

 then new honours are to be awarded, it is to the parties concerned in the ' Great Western ' that 

 they are due ; for the mere practicability of the enterprise is not the point on which well 

 informed persons have ever hesitated ; but the doubt has been whether it can be made certain 

 within given limits of time, and whether these limits will be less than the average passage of 

 packet ships. This point, which the arrival of the ' Sirius' would have left in doubt, is decided 

 by the voyage of the ' Great Western.' The question of the relation between the cost of the 

 enterprise, and the freight, is still undecided. We do not doubt, however, that this will be 

 such as to yield a profit. 



The ' Savannah ' proceeded from New York to Liverpool without stopping at any inter- 

 mediate port ; from Liverpool to St. Petersburgh, touching at Copenhagen. In returning 

 thence this vessel entered the port of Arendal in Norway, and then crossed the Atlantic a 

 second time to New York, without making any intermediate port. Steam, however, was not 

 used during the whole voyage, but the use of the engine was intermitted whenever the wind 

 was such as to enable the vessel to lay her course without deviation. No record appears to 

 remain of the time in which steam alone was used, but the two passages across the Atlantic 

 were each made in twenty-five days. 



A year or two after the voyage of the ' Savannah' a splendid vessel was built in New York, 

 intended as a packet between that city and New Orleans. This vessel was 600 tons burthen, 

 rigged as a ship, and propelled by a powerful steam engine. Several voyages were performed 

 successfully by this vessel, but the number of passengers was not found sufficient to defray 

 the expenses, and the vessel was laid up. This vessel had sufficient burthen to have carried 

 fuel for an entire passage to Europe,-but the public mind was not prepared for the- experiment. 

 The navigation between New York and Charleston S. C. has been for some years partially 

 carried on in steam vessels. These have generally been of small size, and the engines of 

 inferior workmanship to those used upon the Hudson and Long Island Sound. The first 

 attempt to introduce a vessel of larger dimensions and greater cost was unfortunate. The 

 vessel was so weak, in consequence of her extreme length, and the desire to render her 

 buoyant, that in the second voyage she became a perfect wreck at sea, and was with difficulty 

 brought to the land. This was an unfortunate enterprise, not only in the loss of life with 

 which the wreck was attended, but in the check it gave to the spirit of enterprise which was 

 about to be directed to the navigation of the Atlantic. 



For three years past, steam packets have plied regularly between Norfolk in Virginia and 

 Charleston S. C., passing the most dangerous part of the southern coast of the United States, 

 the shoals of Cape Hatteras. 



At the present time, and for some months back, a steam vessel called the ' North Carolina,' 

 has been employed in the conveyance of passengers between Charleston S. C., and Wilmington 

 N. C. A gentleman who recently travelled by this route informs us that the passage occupied 

 15^- hours. The distance by sea is 120 nautical miles, to which is to be added the distance of 

 the two places from the ocean. 



The performances of some of the American vessels of the new model have been very 



