of the rudder passing above and below the shaft when turned in that direction. Several steam auxiliary vessels were thus fitted, but it was not long ere the plan was adopted of cutting away the dead wood in front of the rudder-post and placing the screw before the rudder instead of behind. This enterprise was short-lived, as the vessel made but two round voyages and thereafter remained in American waters. A sister boat, the _Edith_, was purchased by the United States Government before she had made a voyage. The _Massachusetts_ was chartered to carry American troops to Mexico in 1846, and continued in the United States Navy until 1870, when she was sold and converted into the sailing ship _Alaska_, under which name she made some good passages. The _Vanderbilt_, also an auxiliary steamer, built by Simonson of New York for his uncle, Commodore Vanderbilt, in 1855, was 331 feet in length, and had a gross tonnage of 3360. She was probably the first and perhaps the only American-built vessel with two overhead beams to cross the Atlantic; certainly her appearance attracted no small amount of attention. Her two cylinders were each 90 inches diameter and 12 feet stroke; her indicated horse-power was 2800 and her boiler-pressure was as high as 18 lb. The engines were built at the Allaire works. She ran on the New York, Havre, and Cowes route until November 1860, besides going once to Bremen in 1858, and on the outbreak of war was presented by the Commodore to the United States Government. She was afterwards laid up and bought in 1873 by a San Francisco firm, who removed the engines and turned her into the full-rigged three-masted ship _The Three Brothers_; she was next bought by a British firm to end her days as a hulk at Gibraltar. One of the last of the vessels carrying steam for admittedly auxiliary purposes only was the clipper _Annette_, built by Messrs. Russell and Co. in 1863. She was fitted with a screw and a small oscillating engine with cylinders 3 feet in diameter and 3 feet stroke, and a tubular boiler 9¹⁄₂ feet long by 13 feet high gave steam at 20 lb. pressure. Her screw was 11 feet in diameter with 22 feet pitch, and a universal joint connected it to the engine-shaft so that it could be lowered or raised as desired. The masts carried 1418 square yards of canvas.