And during all this time Collins walked the streets, telling all who would listen that he was going to run the _Scotch-built, Scotch-managed_ Cunarders off the sea! When done, the ships were found to have fine models--they rode the waves in a way that excited the admiration of all sailors. But the keelsons under the engines were only forty inches deep, while the keels were 277 feet long, and there was "give" enough to rack the engines to pieces--a fact showing conclusively the ignorance of the designer so far as ocean steamships were concerned. And yet George Steers, the famous designer of the yacht _America_, was the responsible man! As the _Scientific American_ had said of our engineers, he "wanted experience." The _Atlantic_ began the service on April 27, 1850. It was in this year that the average American sailing ship was making three voyages where foreign ships made but two. For thirty years our sailing packets had carried the broom on the North Atlantic. The captains of the Canton tea clippers, dressed in raw silk, were strutting about the water front, boasting of passages that were the wonder of the world. And here was a new line of steamers with a managing owner who had won fame as the owner of swift ships, and who had been assuring the whole world that he was going to beat all creation with steam! In the mind of the captain of the _Atlantic_ the honor of the Stars and Stripes was in his custody, and he could keep it safe only by driving the ship to the utmost limit of speed. And each of the other ships was also driven to the last gasp. In May, 1851, the _Pacific_ ran from New York to Liverpool in 9 days, 20 hours, and 16 minutes. In August, 1852, the _Baltic_ crossed from Liverpool to New York in 9 days and 13 hours. Collins had kept his promise to drive a ship across the Atlantic in less than ten days. In the meantime, the Cunard Company, to meet the determined opposition, built new ships, and the British government raised the subsidy to $16,500 per voyage. Orders were issued in England to drive the new Cunarders, too, but it was impossible for them to equal the rampant Collins liners at that time. For a time it seemed to the American people that the supremacy upon the seas was to be maintained with steam, and not a few Englishmen, including the editor of the _London Times_, took a pessimistic view of the situation. A little later, however, the situation was seen in its true light. On February 15, 1851, when the _Atlantic_ had been in commission but ten months, the _Scientific American_ said editorially that "it is very foolish to push through a steamship on a long passage by dint of coal." The _New York Herald_, a nautical specialist, was complaining, meantime, that the American firemen were wretchedly inefficient. It was admitted by the company, later still, that for the first twenty-eight voyages of the line the average cost of coal was $8612.28, the amount consumed being well up toward 2000 tons.