15& Captain Hall's Account of the Dundee Ferry. 
which is in their hands* that this huge and apparently unwieldy 
boat, is moved about with a celerity and precision altogether 
astonishing. To a stranger, however much accustomed he may 
have been to the wonders of machinery elsewhere, the effect is 
truly magical. The steam-boat, or, more properly, this great 
double raft, is discovered advancing at the rate of seven or eight 
miles an hour, directly for the shore, threading her way like a 
little skiff amongst the vessels lying in her way. In a few seconds 
she arrives, still at full speed, close to the shore. In the next 
instant she is arrested, by a touch of the engineer's hand, as sud- 
denly as if she had struck upon a rock ; and is placed, by the 
sole instrumentality of her invisible machinery, close by the 
side of the pier, with as much accuracy as if she were in a dock, 
and as much gentleness as if, instead of being made of stout oak 
and iron, she were formed of glass. In a moment, two great 
folding gangways are lowered down, and her side being thus 
thrown open, cattle, horses, passengers, all walk out, and find 
themselves on land, with scarcely any circumstance having occur- 
red to indicate they had been on the water. 
A very admirable contrivance, the invention of Messrs J. and 
C. Carmichael of Dundee, has been affixed to the machinery of 
these twin-boats, by which all these movements are rendered ex- 
tremely simple ; and I am happy to have prevailed upon them to 
favour the world with a description of this apparatus *. 
Whatever might have been the degree of public spirit and ac- 
tivity of the Trustees, it was not possible, that so extensive and 
perfect an establishment as this could have been completed with- 
out a very considerable expence. Yet, those who are most fami- 
liar with public works of this description, will readily under- 
stand, that pecuniary difficulties were not likely to have been 
the most serious ones in the way of its attainment. But it were an 
invidious task to speak of the irksome opposition occasionally 
raised in the way of the patriotic and disinterested endeavours of 
the Trustees, whose final, and complete, and now universally 
acknowledged success, is the best, and certainly the most digni- 
fied answer to all such gone-by hostility, from whatever motive 
See the next Article. — E dit. 
