When the inhabitant of the Stone Age had succeeded in putting an edge on his blunt stone implement, he had instantly “broken down a wall that for untold ages had dammed up a stagnant, unprogressive past, and through the breach were let loose all the potentialities of the future civilisation of mankind.” It is by no means an unfitting simile if I suggest that we liken the invention of steam to the discovery of the potentialities of the edge. Until the coming of the former we may well say that progress, as we now know it, remained stagnant, at any rate in respect of _rapid_ movement. Omitting other uses for steam not pertinent to our present subject, we may affirm that in annihilating space, in quickly bridging over the trackless expanse of oceans, steamships have succeeded in accelerating the development of the countries of the world. Ever since the time when primitive man first learned to harness the wind in his navigation of the waters of the earth, there had always been sailing vessels of some sort. For, at any rate, 8,000 years there is a chain of evidence illustrating one kind of sailing craft or another, and the work of later centuries was but to improve and increase the capabilities of the sailing vessels handed down from one generation to the other. But with the first experiments in steamships it was quite different. Here was a case of experimenting, with but few data on which to rely. For, granted that already some knowledge had been collected concerning the capabilities of steam, and notwithstanding the fact that a great deal more knowledge was extant concerning the art of shipbuilding, yet the condition of relationship between ships and steam was unknown, untried. How to generate the maximum of steam power at the lowest cost; how to apply this power in such a manner as to cause the hull to go through the water at a fair pace; whether the propelling power should find its expression at the side or the extremity of the ship--these and many other problems could be solved, not by previous history, but simply and solely by experimenting, as the primitive man had solved the problem of the mast and sail in their relation to the wind.