o expensive in prime construction, but generally
require more repairs, and must be on the docks much oftener. They are,
however, much better suited than side-wheel vessels to voyages where a
medium speed is required, and where the steam can be used at pleasure
simply as an auxiliary power. In such cases there is a profitable
economy of fuel. But speed has generally been deemed essential in this
country, and the side-wheel is everywhere used. But entirely the
contrary is the case in Great Britain and France. There the coasting
business is conducted by screws almost altogether; and the speed does
not transcend the limit of economy and commercial capability. They
distinguish between the extremely fast carriage of mails and
passengers on the one hand, and freights on the other; and although
they wish the speed and certainty of steam, yet it is not the costly
speed. When they know that a given quantity of fuel will carry freight
eight knots per hour, they would consider it wasteful and foolish to
consume twice that quantity of fuel just to carry it ten knots; and
more especially so, when, in addition to the extra quantity of fuel,
they would lose just its bulk in paying freight room. England is thus
employing most of her vast fleet of coasting ocean steamers in her own
trade, or in the foreign trade lying within a few hundred miles of her
ports. And the voyages being short, her coals being cheap and
convenient, frequently not above three dollars per ton to the
coasters, and in addition to this, the prime cost of these vessels
being smaller than in this country, as both iron and labor are
cheaper, she has found them very profitable at home, and is
insinuating them into all the short routes wherever she can get a
foothold. It was not until she attempted the same species of
self-supporting steam navigation with distant countries, that her
propeller system failed her and involved her citizens in loss.
Meanwhile it is more than probable that within the next fifteen years
we shall find five hundred propellers scattered along the coasts of
the United States.

Notwithstanding the eminent capabilities of steam when applied to
coast navigation, or to the fluvial navigation of the interior, it has
failed to make the same triumphs in the carriage of freights and
passengers upon the ocean. And it is not alone because the voyage is
long and the freights low in price. Steamers carry freights up the
Mississippi river two thousand miles fro