sold for a quarter of her original cost of £100,000, was turned into a full-rigged ship for the Australian trade, and eventually became a coal hulk. But in spite of her failure this ship showed that an iron hull and a screw as propeller were a practicable combination. She was divided into five water-tight compartments, she was fitted with bilge-keels to minimise rolling, and instead of the heavy wooden bulwarks possessed by contemporary ships and inherited from the time when the Tudor ships mounted their cannon, _Great Britain_ had iron rails with netting, so that any seas shipped could get away easily. Thus, this unfortunate vessel, in spite of her ill-luck, did introduce new ideas into the Mercantile Marine. It was in 1856 that the Cunard Company built the _Persia_, of iron. She was a 3300-ton ship, but had paddle-wheels, and then, six years later, came their _Scotia_, which was the last and finest paddle-ship ever built for the Atlantic service. She had seven water-tight compartments and a double bottom, thanks to the influence of _Great Britain_, and she lowered the record of crossing the Atlantic to just two hours under the nine days. The sailing ship as a passenger-carrier across that ocean was now definitely beaten, and the future simply consisted in the more thorough perfecting of the steamships; there was no going back now, notwithstanding the fact that in the Eastern trades the full-rigged ships were still making such wonderful passages. [Illustration: [_By courtesy Messrs. T. H. Parker._ THE FAMOUS “GREAT EASTERN.” After her launching in 1858.]