"The _President_, one of the earliest Atlantic liners, was the first steamer to be lost and never heard of again. She sailed from New York on the 11th of March, 1841, with 136 souls on board. She was a nearly new vessel, having left the Mersey on her first voyage on the 17th of July, 1840. The commander was Lieutenant Roberts, R.N., a man of iron will and resource. He had taken the _Sirius_ on her first voyage from Queenstown to New York in 1838 in eighteen and a half days. The _Sirius_ was the first steamer owned by an English company which crossed the Atlantic, and but for the determination of Lieutenant Roberts the crew would not have proceeded; they became mutinous, and said it was utter madness to go on in so small a craft. He insisted and had resort to firearms, and so brought the little vessel to her destination. "After the loss of the _President_ in 1841, thirteen years elapsed in which only one life was lost by the wreck of an Atlantic steamer. It is a curious coincidence that, after the _President_ was lost and never heard of, the next great loss of life, which occurred in 1854, was also that of a vessel which disappeared without leaving a trace. This was the _City of Glasgow_, which sailed with 480 souls on board. The _Pacific_, of the Collins Line, left Liverpool on the 29th of June, 1856, and with her living freight of 240 was never more heard of. In the year 1859 an Anchor liner, the _Tempest_, mysteriously disappeared with 150 souls. The _City of Boston_ of the Inman Line, with 177 persons, was never heard of after leaving port on the 28th of January, 1870. A board stating that she was sinking was found in Cornwall on February 11, 1870. The Allan liner _Huronian_ left Glasgow in February, 1902, for St. John's and disappeared. The British gunboat _Condor_ was lost in the Pacific in 1901. Besides these, the names of many lesser-known vessels swell the long list of tragic disappearances. "The White Star cattle steamer _Naronic_, with a crew of sixty hands and seventeen cattlemen, was lost in February or March, 1893, while on a voyage from Liverpool to New York. She was a month overdue before very much anxiety was felt, as it was known that heavy weather had been experienced in the Atlantic, and it was thought that she might have broken down and was making for the Azores. A boat with the name _Naronic_ on it was subsequently found half full of water and abandoned. In this case the vessel was a new one, launched in May of the previous year. She was built with bulkheads and all modern improvements, was 460 feet long, and had engines of 3,000 horsepower. Yet she disappeared, perhaps 1,500 miles from New York, that being the location of the abandoned boat."