EN G IN ERRING. 297 



Iron ship-building has had almost its entire growth within the last forty years. 



In the spring of 1845, I visited a small iron ship-yard, then quite a new 

 thing, at Birkenhead, on the south side of the Mersey. The proprietor, in his 

 green flannel roundabout, showed his modest establishment, and explained some 

 of the processes. That proprietor became afterward well known to the world as 

 Sir John Laird, the great iron ship-builder, and especially to this country as the 

 builder of the Alabama. The operations of that enterprising craft came near in- 

 volving us and our cousins across the water in a very serious conflict. This was 

 averted by the moral courage and enlightened patriotism of Grant and Hamilton 

 Fish on this side, and Gladstone and Clarendon on the other, who, not having 

 the fear of demagogues before their eyes, agreed upon arbitration instead of 

 war. All honor to the statesmen who took this great step in Christian civiliza- 

 tion. 



They were just beginning to build the first dock wall on the red sandstone 

 bed rock of the Mersey; now they have 159 acres of dock-room enclosed. Then 

 Birkenhead was a small village; now it has more than 100,000 inhabitants. 

 America is not the only country that moves. 



Mr. Chanute, in his annual address, two years ago, spoke of the first pro- 

 peller boat used in America. That propeller fell into my hands ; and I towed 

 the first fleet of boats ever towed by a propeller tug on this side of the Atlantic, 

 from Philadelphia to Bordentown, in October, 1839. Now, our harbors are full 

 of them. The first propellers ever built in this country, and, as far as I know, 

 the first iron hulls, were the Anthracite and the Black Diamond, built on the plans 

 of Captain Ericsson, and employed in carrying coal through the Delaware and 

 Raritan Canal. The first sea-going propeller built in this country was the frigate 

 Princeton, built on Captain Ericsson's designs, under the direction of Captain 

 Stockton. It was a full rigged sailing ship, the intention being to use steam only 

 as auxiliary. 



It should not be forgotten that John Stevens, almost eighty years ago, built 

 a small propeller boat, with two propellers, or "circular sculls," as he called 

 them, and ran it about the harbor of New York. It is wonderful how near his 

 blades approach the angle which experience has shown to be the best. He used 

 a small locomotive boiler, as it would now be called, such as was reinvented by 

 Booth, a quarter of a century later, at Liverpool. 



The rapid progress of the country, and the activity of the age, are more 

 strikingly shown by the records of the Post Office Department, than by the in- 

 crease of population — from three to fifty millions since the revolution — or than 

 by any other statistics I know of. During several years of the time that Benja- 

 min Franklin was Postmaster-General, he personally kept the whole accounts of 

 the department, and all in one small book, and settled with the postmasters and 

 mail carriers. There were then about, perhaps, twenty or thirty dead letters a 

 year, now there are four millions. It now takes eight clerks constantly employed 

 to open them, and I remember that it takes fifty clerks to take charge of one class 

 of them. Franklin kept one small book, which lasted three years, now there are 



