Although the _Comet_ at first proved commercially unsuccessful, there is no part of Europe where the progress in the construction of steamers has been either so great or so astonishing as on the Clyde. From a silvery salmon stream it has become in half a century by far the largest and most important shipbuilding river in the world; but, alas, its once limpid stream has long since ceased to be either silvery or pure.[102] Ancient historians have told us that when the first Punic war roused the citizens of Rome to extraordinary exertions in the equipment of a fleet for the destruction of the maritime supremacy of Carthage, the banks of the Tiber resounded with the axe and the hammer, and that the extent of the ship-building operations then carried on was a matter not merely of surprise, but of wonder. How insignificant, however, was that sound when compared with that of the steam hammer and the anvil and the din of the work now to be heard on the banks of the Clyde. For miles on both sides of the river stupendous ship-building yards line its banks, employing tens of thousands of hardy and skilled mechanics earning their daily bread, as God has destined all men to do, by “the sweat of their brow,” relieved from oppressive taxation, and free from anything approaching the thraldom of slavery, the curse of ancient Rome. Along those banks there is now annually constructed a much larger amount of steam tonnage than in all the other ports of Europe combined, those of England alone excepted. What a contrast to the days of Henry Bell!—days almost within my own recollection. By comparing the Clyde with the Tiber, both in themselves comparatively insignificant rivers—the one made important by the power of the Cæsars, the other by the wisdom and energy of the Clyde trustees, it is to be hoped that more than one lesson may be learned from the character of the employment on their respective banks. The clamour on the Tiber when Rome resolved to achieve maritime greatness, indicated war, terrible war, with Carthage; but the sounds on the Clyde proclaim a mission of peace and good-will among nations, for nearly all the ships constructed there are destined to carry to other lands the fabrics of our workshops and the products of our mills, and with them the civilizing and enlightening influence resulting from the skill and genius of our artisans.[103] [Sidenote: Great value and importance of the private building yards.]