42 NEW ENGLAND TRAVELING. [CHAP. III. 



gentlemen were admitted. Above this apartment where we 

 dined was the ladies cabin, and above that the upper deck, 

 where we sat to enjoy the prospect as we approached the mouth 

 of the Kennebec. In the forepart of the vessel, on this upper 

 deck, is a small room, having windows on all sides, where the 

 man at the helm is stationed ; riot at the stern, as in our boats, 

 which is considered by the Americans as a great improvement 

 on the old system, as the steersman s view can not be intercepted, 

 and the passengers are never requested to step on one side to 

 enable him to^ see his way. Directions to the engineer, instead 

 of being transmitted by voice through an intermediate messenger, 

 are given directly by one or more loud strokes on a bell. The 

 fuel used is anthracite, the absence of oxygen being compensated 

 by a strong current of air kept up by what resembles a winnow- 

 ing-machine, and does the work of a pair of bellows. 



After sailing up the Kennebec about fifteen miles we came to 

 Bath, a town of 5000 souls, chiefly engaged in ship-building, a 

 branch of industry in which the State of Maine ranks first in 

 the Union ; the materials consisting of white oak and pine, the 

 growth of native forests. Large logs of timber squared, and 

 each marked with the owner s name, are often cast into the 

 river, sometimes far above Augusta, and come floating down 100 

 miles to this place. In w r inter many of them get frozen into the 

 ice and imprisoned for six or seven months, until the late spring 

 releases them, and then not a few of them are carried far out 

 into the Atlantic, where they have been picked up, with the 

 owner s name still telling the place of their origin. The water 

 is salt as far as Bath, above which it is fresh and freezes over, so 

 as to allow sleighs and skaters to cross it in winter, although the 

 influence of the tide extends as far up as Augusta, about forty 

 miles above Bath. I am informed that the whole body of the 

 ice rises and falls, cracking along the edges where it is weakest. 

 Over the fissures planks are placed to serve as a bridge, or snow 

 is thrown in, which freezes, and affords a passage to the central 

 ice. The Kennebec, besides being enlivened by the &quot; lumber 

 trade,&quot; is at this season whitened with the sails of vessels laden 

 with hay, which has been compressed into small bulk by the 



