In those early days, as the flaming posters in the downtown streets of New York used to announce, it was “Sail versus Steam” and the packet ships justified their claim more than once by beating a steamship from port to port. When, as not infrequently happened, a packet ship running before a strong westerly gale in mid-ocean overhauled a wallowing side-wheel steamer bound the same way, the joyous shouts and derisive yells of the steerage passengers on board the packet, as she ranged alongside and swept past the “tea-kettle,” were good for the ears of sailormen to hear. In those days no sailors liked steamships, not even those who went to sea in them. If a packet captain sighted a steamer ahead going the same way, he usually steered for her and passed to windward as close as possible, in order that the dramatic effect of the exploit might not be lost upon the passengers of either vessel. The Atlantic steamship lines with which the packet ships had to compete, the Cunard, Collins, Havre, Bremen, and Vanderbilt lines, ran only wooden side-wheel steamers; but when the Inman Line was founded in 1850, and began to run iron screw steamers between Liverpool and Philadelphia, the Atlantic packet ships began to lose their trade. Indeed, from 1840, when the Cunard Line was established, until the Inman Line began to run their fast iron screw steamships to New York in 1857, the rivalry between sail and steam was keen and spirited. During these years the Atlantic mail steamships carried almost as much canvas as sailing vessels, and they continued to do so for many years. Most of the Cunarders were barque-rigged, and the famous _Russia_ of that line carried topmast and topgallant studdingsails. The Allan liners were also barque-rigged, and the Inman steamships were full ship-rigged, while the White Star liners were ship-rigged with a jiggermast. It was not until 1889, when the White Star Line brought out the _Majestic_ and the _Teutonic_ with twin screws, pole masts, and no canvas, that the Atlantic Ocean began to be navigated by vessels propelled entirely by steam; so that the complete transition from sail to steam required very nearly half a century. It cannot be said that steam competition had any direct effect upon the California clippers, as it is only of late years that there has been direct communication by sea between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and the Pacific Mail Company, after once getting its steamers round into the Pacific, had always carried passengers, the mails, and specie with transshipment at Panama. The demand for the California clippers ceased when rapid transportation of cargoes round Cape Horn became no longer necessary.