s.

It is not easy to get intelligent men to believe in things that savour
of the marvellous; yet there seems to be a point past which, if once a
man be got, he will go on to believe almost anything, no matter how
absurd. In those days few people in Europe would credit the truth of
this ship's proportions; but when, in the course of time and from
indubitable testimony, they were compelled to believe, they flew to the
opposite extreme of incredulity and believed anything, as the following
curiously comical paragraph will show. It is said to have appeared in a
Scotch treatise on steamships, and is intended for a "full, true, and
particular account" of this monstrous American man-of-war steamer.
After giving her dimensions three times larger than they were in
reality, the author continues:--"The thickness of her sides is thirteen
feet of alternate oak plank and cork wood. She carries forty-four guns,
four of which are hundred pounders; quarter-deck and forecastle guns,
forty-four pounders: and further, to annoy an enemy attempting to board,
can discharge one hundred gallons of boiling water in a minute; and, by
mechanism, brandishes three hundred cutlasses with the utmost regularity
over her gunwales; works also an equal number of heavy iron spikes of
great length, darting them from the sides with prodigious force, and
withdrawing them every quarter of a minute!" This vessel, although
probably intended for an ocean-steamer, was never used as such. But not
long after, a vessel propelled by steam ventured to cross the Atlantic,
and thus became the parent of commercial steam navigation. This vessel
was:

THE "SAVANNAH" STEAMER.

Unfortunately, little information as to this, the first ocean-steamer,
has been chronicled.

She was launched at New York on the 22nd of August 1818, and in the
following year made her first voyage to Savannah, from which she sailed
for Liverpool soon after, and crossed the Atlantic in twenty-five days--
during eighteen of which she used her engines.

The _Savannah_ was about 350 tons burden, and was on this occasion
commanded by Captain Moses Rodgers. She was fitted with machinery for
taking in her wheels in stormy weather, which was found to work
admirably; and she is mentioned as having been seen on the ocean going
at the rate of nine or ten knots.

From Liverpool this steamer went to Saint Petersburg, and afterwards
returned to Savannah in safety.

This was the insertion of the wed