nding its use.

But there are approximate conclusions, readily applicable to
practice, at which even the unprofessional can arrive with certainty
and security on a proper presentation of the prominent facts and
theories concerned; and that these may be given to the public in a
reliable and intelligible form, for the removal of the doubts and
obscurities which have hung around the subject, is the chief object of
this publication. This inquiry becomes the more important as the speed
of American steamers is proverbially beyond that of any other steam
vessels in the world. From the first conception of fluvial and marine
steam propulsion by Fitch and Fulton, the public and the inventors
themselves regarded the new application of this power with the more
favor as it promised to be a means of shortening the long distances
between the different parts of our own large country. And the same
object has acted as a stimulus ever since to that increase of speed
which has placed localities all over this country, hitherto days
apart, now, probably, but as many hours. The slow trip through marshes
and rivers, over hills and mountains, and by the meandering roads of
the country, between New-York and Albany, once required from four to
six days; but the attainment of twenty-five miles per hour in our fast
river steamers has at length placed that capital within six hours of
the Metropolis. And, as in this instance, so has the effort been
throughout our whole country, and upon the ocean, until we have
attained, both upon the rivers and the high seas, the highest speed
yet known, notwithstanding the important fact that steamship building
is a new and not fully developed species of enterprise in this
country. We have already seen how imperatively the spirit of the age
and the genius of our people demand rapid steam mails by both land and
sea, and a rapid conveyance of passengers; and it would be
unreasonable to suppose that if we required these for the development
of our youth, they would be less necessary for the fruitful uses of
manhood and maturity. It is abundantly evident that the American
people are by nature and habit a progressive and unusually hurrying
people; and it is not to be supposed that they will reverse this
constitutional law of their nature in their attempts at ocean
navigation.

To answer the question, "What is the cost of high, adequate mail
speed?" requires something more than an inquiry into the quantity of
fuel consu