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 from New-Orleans, and find it profitable. Some run even as high as three thousand miles up that river and the Missouri; a voyage nearly as long as to Europe, and make money by it. But the circumstances are very different. They do not leave the dock at New-Orleans with even more than enough fuel on board for the whole trip, as the ocean steamers do. If they did they could carry no freight. But they stop every twelve to eighteen hours and take on wood just as they need it, fifty to a hundred cords at a time; and instead of occupying all of their available room with wood, they have the steamer full of cargo, and have on board only fifty or sixty tons of fuel at a time, and only half that weight on an average. None of the best steamers on those rivers could take enough wood on board for the whole three thousand miles, even though they should not have a ton of freight. And compared with ocean steamers of the same engine power, they do not cost half of the money, I might say generally, not one third of the money. There is no reason, then, why these steamers should not carry large quantities of freight and make large sums of money by it. They have the great elements, fuel, freight capacity, and prime cost in their favor.