The builder, the shipwright, the commander, and sailor of this period have never been equalled in any of their professions since, and with but few exceptions the modern steel ship is a retrograde in everything pertaining to the real art as compared to the ship of the period we refer to. The ships, of course, are larger now, and that is all. This period was not only noted on account of the high character of the art, but ship-building plants in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore turned out the finest specimens of construction in the world. All of the workmen—shipwrights, ship-joiners, ship-smiths, ship-painters, and caulkers—were without equals on the planet. The Webbs, the Westervelts, the Steers family, Jere Simonson, Smith and Dimon and others of New York, and John Vaughan, John Byerly, the Van Duzen family, John K. Hammett and William Cramp, of Philadelphia, were the leaders of their profession the world over. In the navy were to be found the Grices, the Humphreys, the Hanscoms, Delano, and others. The introduction of the iron ship was made under very unfavorable conditions. The first to take hold of the new material were people, mechanically speaking, of commonplace character both here and abroad, and the art or profession as a rule retains the original taint up to this time. There are some exceptions; some ship-builders in Great Britain carried their art into the Iron Age,—the Napiers, the Ingliss family, and others in Great Britain, and the Cramps in the United States. Mr. Cramp’s mould loft practice and methods as carried on from the wooden-ship period is the practice now in use in the construction of the navy. The great advance in the steamship of the period thence up to this time has been in the machinery; and in marine engineering the English were our masters. There has been no advance here in the ship-building art in any respect. The decade following the Mexican War and preceding that of the Rebellion was marked chiefly by the final or ultimate development of the clipper type of sailing-vessel, and also by the gradual surrender of sail to steam in propulsion and of wood to iron in construction. The clipper idea was undoubtedly of Baltimore origin, and, in fact, the name of that city was given to the type,—the “Baltimore Clipper.” They were, of course, sailing-vessels. In all respects of model, of structure, size of spars and sails, dimensions of hull, etc., the type was distinctly American. It is known, however, that the earliest clippers built in Baltimore were intended for and used in the African slave-trade. In this nefarious traffic they were extremely successful, because in the day of their beginning there were no steam cruisers to enforce the laws making the slave-trade piracy, and there was no sailing cruiser afloat which could keep within sight of a Baltimore clipper in the slave-trading days.