The first pioneers of steamship construction were apparently satisfied to find their efforts result in some motion, for we find exultation rather than disappointment in the accounts extant of Patrick Miller’s experiments with a small steamer on a Scotch canal in the year 1787; and later, in 1789, when, with a larger and better boat and machinery, he was able to obtain a speed of 7 miles an hour (equivalent to 6.07 knots[12]) it was deemed a great achievement; later still, in 1807, Fulton’s first attempt with the steamship Clermont, in a run from Albany to New York and back, the average speed was only 5 miles an hour. In those days so long as a steamer was able to face wind and tide she was deemed a success. The competition of steamers in early times (when there was any) was with sailing ships, or with land conveyances whose maximum rate would be 10 miles an hour, and that effected at considerable cost in horse-flesh. It is, however, true that sailing ships did then, and can now, sail, under favorable circumstances, at very much higher rates than we have just mentioned, and even as much as 15 knots can be obtained with one of fine lines with a favoring wind; but a sailing ship is not always free to traverse the shortest distance from port to port, and even when wind and weather permit of this, the _average_ speed falls far below 15 knots with the best-designed vessels; hence if a steamer could do 9 knots she would make shorter passages than any sailer; and from the nearer approach to uniformity in the time occupied, passengers were attracted to steamships, and the passenger sailing vessel, except for very long voyages, became a thing of the past. The Clermont, constructed by Fulton in America, and supplied by him with engines made by Messrs. Bolton & Watt, in Birmingham, England, was 133 feet long, 18 feet broad, and 9 feet deep; the engine had a diameter of piston of 24 inches with 4 feet stroke; she took 32 hours performing the voyage from Albany to New York, and 30 hours in returning—the journey can now be done in one-fourth that time. In 1815 the steamship Caledonia was placed on the service between Margate (England) and Holland, and her speed did not exceed 7-1/2 knots per hour. Steamships now perform the passage at double that speed, and the most recent additions to the continental service between Dover and Ostend are steamboats that can travel at nearly three times the pace of the Caledonia. The Princesse Henriette is 300 feet long, 38 feet broad, and 13 feet 6 inches deep, and has engines whose cylinders are 58 inches and 104 inches diameter, with a stroke of 6 feet, and on page 69 is shown a drawing of her, taken from a photograph when travelling on her trial trip at a speed of 21.28 knots, or 24-1/2 statute miles per hour. [Illustration: Engines of the Comet.]