Want of space has prevented the relation of further details of the steam-ship history of the period, though a few from the long list of steam-ship companies of other countries may be mentioned. The Messageries Maritimes de France grew out of a company formed to carry inland mails. In 1851 they contracted to carry some of the oversea mails, and extending their operations as the years went on are now the largest steam-ship company in France. The next largest French company is the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, which was formed in 1862 and is also a mail carrier. To this company belong the largest steamers ever constructed in France. The Hamburg-America Company of Germany launched its first steamer, the _Borussia_, in 1855 for the Atlantic service, and the Norddeutscher Lloyd followed in 1856 with the _Bremen_. These boats were, however, built in Great Britain, as all large German steam-ships were until comparatively modern times. The Austrian Lloyd Steam Navigation Company, which belongs to Trieste, was founded as far back as 1836 for the Mediterranean service. This chapter may be fitly brought to a conclusion with a reference to the _Great Eastern_--the wonder and the failure of her age in popular estimation. To the general public she appeared as an extraordinarily large ship which was a complete failure as a commercial undertaking. To a few she was the embodiment of all that skill and scientific genius had conceived in construction up to that time. She was the great illustration of the longitudinal system of construction invented by Scott Russell, and of the use of longitudinal and transverse bulkheads. Scott Russell’s invention of the longitudinal frame was due to his perception of the fact that as vessels increased in size the longitudinal strain would become greater, especially when they were carrying heavy machinery amidships or nearly so. In the vessels of the size then constructed the longitudinal strain experienced by small iron ships was comparatively small. One method adopted to strengthen hulls longitudinally was to give them a number of floor-plates, forming a strong continuous keelson. Other keelsons were also constructed to run fore and aft near the bilges; a bilge stringer was added, while on the outside, bilge keels were sometimes fixed. Russell introduced the system in 1835, but the registration societies did not look with approval on the innovation and nothing came of it at the time.