As a first bit of evidence in proof of this assertion here is the story of the _Natchez_ in which Captain "Bob" Waterman first won fame. In 1843 Waterman sailed her around the world and made the passage from Canton to New York in 94 days. The whole voyage required only 9 months and 26 days. In 1844 he drove her from New York to Valparaiso in 71 days, thence to Callao in 8, and thence to Hongkong in 54. She then loaded teas at Canton and he drove her from that port to New York, 13,955 miles, in 78 days. This last passage was but one day longer than Waterman's record passage of 77 days made in the _Sea Witch_, "the swiftest clipper of her day." But the _Natchez_ was not a clipper, although she has been described as one. She was built with full lines and a flat bottom in order that she might carry huge loads of cotton from New Orleans, across the shoals at the mouths of the Mississippi, and around to New York; and while engaged in that trade, she had earned the reputation of being one of the slowest ships on the American coast! As to the lines of the clippers note that while Donald McKay supposed that the _Lightning_ made her great speed because she was "hollow" at the bow, the modern yacht designers, who have tried out the hollow lines for years, have entirely abandoned them. The famous _America_ had hollow lines; no modern yacht has anything of the kind. The _Dreadnought_, with her unequalled North Atlantic record, was called a "semi-clipper," in her day. Her lines, as printed in Griffiths's _Nautical Magazine_, show that she was as full as many ships that were never classed as anything but plain cargo carriers. In connection with this fact recall the records of a ship or two built long before the clipper era--Derby's _Mount Vernon_, for instance, with her passage of 17 days from Salem to Gibraltar. The _Silas Richards_, formerly a packet between New York and Liverpool, left New York in June, 1836, for Canton, and she was back in New York at the end of March, 1837. Her run home was made in 91 days. Even the old _Desire_ (high in poop and low in spars, when compared with the clippers) made the passage, away back in 1640, from Boston to Gravesend in 23 days. Out of 157 vessels that arrived at San Francisco in 1852, no less than seventy had been designed as clippers, of which, however, only three or four made notable passages. No complete list of the ships built with clipper lines was ever made, nor can one be made now; but out of the 2656 ships and barks launched between 1843 and 1855, which was the clipper era, it is certain that at least 10 per cent--256--were of the clipper model. But only a few more than a score ever made better records than the previously built packets had made. Indeed, many of the leanest and sharpest of the clipper hulls, together with (curiously enough) others that were built from the drawings of some of the successful clippers, were absolute failures, so far as speed was concerned.