And yet it was scarcely probable that the value of the sail, which had been appreciated for so many thousands of years, should be suddenly found worthless. Inventions are no sooner born than they find themselves compelled in their weak infancy to fight for their lives against the militant conservatism of established custom. Seamen-descendants of ages and ages of seamen, themselves the most conservative of any section of society, were not likely to believe so readily that pipes and boilers were going to do as much for the ship as spars and sails. Nor, in fact, did they all at once. But something had to come as a greater propelling power than uncertain wind. For the world in the early part of this hundred years was waking up again after the dull Georgian period. It was perhaps rather a new birth--another Renaissance. Soon it began to get busy, and speed, not repose, became the general cry, whose noise is heard now louder and louder each day on land as well as sea. Every known device of the architect and builder was employed to coax additional knots out of the sailing ship: all the improvements in sails and gear were utilised to this purpose. As the result of these demands the magnificent clippers doing their marvellous passages homewards evolved. But that was all too slow. Passengers and freights were in a hurry to get from shore to shore, and, later, perishable food supplies could not be entrusted to the sailing ship. And so, when once the steamship had appeared, even though not as a pronounced success, yet the spirit of the times was such that she should be encouraged as being likely to satisfy the cravings of an active, restless age.