Bell’s _Comet_ was a quaint-looking craft, with a tall, slender funnel, that served the double purpose of mast and chimney. Her length was 42 feet, breadth 11 feet, draught of water 5½ feet. She had originally two small paddle-wheels on each side with four arms to each. The engine was about three horse-power, and seems to have been the joint production of Bell and the village blacksmith. The boiler was made by David Napier, at a cost of £52. The engine is still preserved in the patent office of the South Kensington Museum. The _Comet_ was lengthened at Helensburgh, in 1818, to 60 feet, and received a new engine of six horse-power, by means of which her speed was increased to six miles an hour. This engine was made by John Robertson, of Glasgow. [Illustration: BELL’S “COMET,” OFF DUMBARTON ON THE CLYDE, 1812. From “Chambers’ Book of Days.”] The _Comet_ did not pay as a passenger boat on the Clyde, and was soon after her launch put on the route to Fort William, and continued on that stormy route till December 15th, 1820, when she was wrecked at Craignish, on the West Highland coast. She had left Oban that morning against the advice of her captain, who deemed the boat unseaworthy and quite unfit to encounter the blinding snow storm, in the midst of which she went ashore. But Bell had over-ruled the captain. Fortunately there was no loss of life. She was replaced in the following year by a larger and improved style of vessel, called by the same name and sailed by the same master, Robert Bain, who was the first to take a steamer through the Crinan Canal, and the first to traverse the Caledonian Canal from sea to sea by steam, in 1822. The second _Comet_ came into collision with the steamer _Ayr_ off Gourock in October, 1825, and sank with the loss of seventy lives. She was raised, however, was rigged as a schooner, renamed the _Anne_, and sailed for many years as a coaster.