What a contrast to the days of Henry Bell does the Clyde now present! From a mere salmon stream it has become, in little more than half a century, by far the largest and most important ship-building river in the wide world. “Ancient historians have told us that when the first Punic war roused the citizens of Rome to extraordinary exertions in the equipment of a fleet for the destruction of the maritime supremacy of Carthage, the banks of the Tiber resounded with the axe and the hammer, and that the extent of the ship-building operations then carried on was a matter not merely of surprise, but of wonder. How insignificant, however, was that sound when compared with that of the steam-hammer and the anvil, and the din of the work now to be heard on the banks of the Clyde. For miles on both sides of the river stupendous ship-building yards line its banks, employing tens of thousands of hardy and skilled mechanics earning their daily bread, as God has destined all men to do, by ‘the sweat of their brow.’... Along those banks there is now annually constructed a much larger amount of steam tonnage than in all the other ports of Europe combined, those of England alone excepted.” These great private yards have been and will be invaluable in war times. Take such a firm as that of John Elder and Co., Fairfield, Glasgow, whose works cover sixty acres of ground. They have built vessels in the course of a year aggregating 35,000 to 40,000 tons, and have contracted for as many as six 4,000-ton steam-ships at a time. One of these was delivered to her owners complete and ready for sea, with steam up, within thirteen months of the time she was contracted for. Bell’s _Comet_ was only of thirty tons, and its engine but of four-horse power! Mr. James Deas, C.E., in a work on the Clyde and its commerce, &c., says:—“It was no uncommon occurrence for the passengers, when the little steamer was getting exhausted, to take to turning the fly-wheel to assist her.”(29) Poor Bell, like so many of the pioneers of grand and important undertakings, did not profit much by his successful application of steam to navigation, and in his declining years was chiefly supported by an annuity of £50 granted by the Clyde trustees.