Thirty-one California clippers were launched during the year 1851, and almost all the large ship-yards along the Atlantic seaboard were represented by one or more. Donald McKay built the _Flying Cloud_, _Flying Fish_, and _Staffordshire_; William H. Webb, the _Challenge_, _Invincible_, _Comet_, _Gazelle_, and _Sword-Fish_; Fernald and Pettigrew, of Portsmouth, the _Typhoon_; Jacob A. Westervelt & Sons, the _Hornet_ and _N. B. Palmer_; George Raynes, the _Wild Pigeon_ and _Witch of the Wave_; Smith & Co., of Hoboken, the _Hurricane_; Perrin, Patterson & Stack, of Williamsburg, the _Ino_; Briggs Bros., of South Boston, the _Northern Light_ and _Southern Cross_; Hood & Co., of Somerset, the _Raven_; J. O. Curtis, of Medford, the _Shooting Star_; J. Williams, the _Tornado_, Isaac Taylor, of Medford, the _Syren_; Trufant & Drummond, of Bath, the _Monsoon_, and Jacob Bell, the _Trade-Wind_. It would be impossible to name the handsomest of these ships, for while they were all of the same general design, each possessed her special type of beauty; and beauty, as we all know, is elusive, depending largely on fashion and individual taste. In order to attract the favorable attention of shippers and to secure the highest rates of freight, it was necessary that these ships should be handsome as well as swift. Ship-owners were content to spend large sums of money, not only upon refined decoration, which was but a small portion of the expense, but also in carefully selected woods, such as India teak and Spanish mahogany for deck fittings, and in the finest shipwright’s and joiner’s work about the decks, which were marvels of neatness and finish. Ship-builders certainly had every incentive to exercise their best skill upon these vessels; they received pretty much their own prices for building them, and each ship, as she sailed out upon the ocean, held in her keeping the reputation of her builder, to whom a quick passage meant fame and fortune. Six of the clipper ships launched in 1851, the _Flying Cloud_, _Comet_, _Sword-Fish_, _Witch of the Wave_, _Ino_, and _Northern Light_, established speed records that have not yet been broken, and as time rolls on, the probability that they ever will be, becomes less and less.