The _Great Republic_, one of the last of the clipper packet-ships, was built in the United States in 1854. She was a four-master of 3,400 tons, 305 feet long, 53 feet beam, and 30 feet in depth. She made the run from New York to the Scilly Islands in thirteen days. She ended her sailing career as a French transport ship, and finally was degraded to a coal hulk. The largest sailing vessel afloat at the present time is the five-masted steel ship _La France_, built on the Clyde by D. & W. Henderson for French owners. She is 6,100 tons burthen, 375 feet long, 49 feet wide and 33¾ feet depth. Her fore mainmast is 166 feet high. On her first trip from Cardiff to Rio Janeiro she carried 6,000 tons of coal, and attained a speed of twelve and a half knots. THE DAWN OF STEAMSHIP NAVIGATION. Paddle-wheels for driving boats through the water were used long before steam-engines were thought of. They were worked by hand and foot-power without, however, any advantage over the old-fashioned oar. The horse-boat, in a variety of forms, has been in use for many years, and is not yet quite obsolete. In its earlier form two horses, one on each side of a decked scow, were hitched to firmly braced upright posts at which they tugged for all they were worth without ever advancing beyond their noses, but communicating motion to the paddle-wheels by the movable platform on which they trod. For larger boats four or five horses were harnessed to horizontal bars converging towards the centre, and moved around the deck in a circle, the paddles receiving their impulse through a set of cog-wheels. The “latest improvement” was on the direct self-acting treadmill principle, the power being regulated by the weight of the horses and the pitch of elevation given to the revolving platform on which the unfortunate animals were perched. Newcomen’s steam-engine had been invented and used for other purposes eighty years at least, before it was applied to the propelling of vessels. The modern steamboat is not an _invention_, but rather the embodiment of many inventions and experiments, extending over a long series of years by different men and in different countries. [Illustration: HORSE-BOAT AT EMPY’S FERRY, OSNABRUCK, ONT.]