Although the ‘Great Western’ was the first steamer which was built for regular voyages between Europe and America, the first attempt to use steam in the direct voyage across the Atlantic was made by an American ship of 300 tons burden, called the ‘Savannah,’ and built at New York. Her engines were of small power, with paddles made to ship and unship. She made only two voyages to and from Europe: in the first of these she left the port of Savannah on May 25, and anchored at Liverpool on June 20, 1819. No further advance in Ocean Steam Navigation seems to have been attempted until 1835. In the October of that year, at a meeting of the Directors of the Great Western Railway Company, at Radley’s Hotel, in Bridge Street, Blackfriars, one of the party spoke of the enormous length, as it then appeared, of the proposed railway from London to Bristol. Mr. Brunel exclaimed, ‘Why not make it longer, and have a steamboat to go from Bristol to New York, and call it the “Great Western?”’ This suggestion was treated as a joke by most of those who heard it; but at night Mr. Brunel and Mr. T. R. Guppy, one of the Directors, talked it over, and afterwards consulted three of the leading members of the Board--Mr. Scott, Mr. Pycroft, and Mr. Robert Bright. They took up the idea warmly, and a committee was formed to carry out the project. As a preliminary measure, Mr. Guppy and Captain Christopher Claxton, R.N., made a tour of the great ship-building ports of the kingdom, in order to collect information. The results of their inquiries were embodied in a report, dated January 1, 1836, which describes at great length the advantages to be gained in large vessels. The manuscript was submitted to Mr. Brunel previously to its publication, and he inserted the following passage:-- The resistance of vessels in the water does not increase in direct proportion to their tonnage. This is easily explained; the tonnage increases as the cubes of their dimensions, while the resistance increases about as their squares; so that a vessel of double the tonnage of another, capable of containing an engine of twice the power, does not really meet with double the resistance. Speed therefore will be greater with the large vessel, or the proportionate power of the engine and consumption of fuel may be reduced. This was an important addition to the report, for it enunciates the principle which governed Mr. Brunel in determining the dimensions and power, not only of the ‘Great Western,’ but also of the ‘Great Britain’ and ‘Great Eastern’ steam-ships.