[Illustration: FIG. 70.--The _Bazaar_. American cotton-ship. 1832.] In 1840, when steamers had already commenced to cross the Atlantic, a much faster and better-shaped type of sailing-packet was put upon the New York-Havre route. These vessels were of from 800 to 1,000 tons. One of them, the _Sir John Franklin_, is shown in Fig. 71. They offered to passengers the advantages of a quick passage, excellent sea-going qualities, and, compared with the cotton-ships, most comfortable quarters. The Americans had also about this time admirable sailing-packets trading with British ports. In the early fifties the doom of the sailing-packet on comparatively short voyages, such as that between New York and Western European ports, had been already sealed; but, for distant countries, such as China and Australia, and for cargo-carrying purposes in many trades, the sailing-ship was still able to hold its own. Fig. 72 represents an American three-masted clipper called the _Ocean Herald_, built in the year 1855. She was 245 ft. long, 45 ft. in beam, and of 2,135 tons. Her ratio of length to breadth was 5.45 to 1. Fig. 73 is an illustration of the _Great Republic_, which was one of the finest of the American clippers owned by Messrs. A. Law and Co., of New York. She was 305 ft. long, 53 ft. beam, 30 ft. depth of hold, and of 3,400 tons. She was the first vessel fitted with double topsails. Her spread of canvas, without counting stay-sails, amounted to about 4,500 square yards. She had four decks, and her timber structure was strengthened from end to end with a diagonal lattice-work of iron. The speed attained by some of these vessels was most remarkable. In 1851 the _Nightingale_, built at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in a race from Shanghai to Deal, on one occasion ran 336 knots in twenty-four hours. In the same year the _Flying Cloud_, one of Donald McKay's American clippers, ran 427 knots in twenty-four hours in a voyage from New York to San Francisco. This performance was eclipsed by that of another vessel belonging to the same owner, the _Sovereign of the Seas_, which on one occasion averaged over eighteen miles an hour for twenty-four consecutive hours. This vessel had a length of keel of 245 ft., 44 ft. 6 in. beam, and 25 ft. 6 in. depth of hold. She was of 2,421 tons register. [Illustration: FIG. 71.--The _Sir John Franklin_. American Transatlantic sailing-packet. 1840.] [Illustration: FIG. 72.--The _Ocean Herald_. American clipper. 1855.]