In 1811, Bell, having procured the necessary funds, had a steam-boat built of twenty-five tons and four horse power. He named it the _Comet_, because a comet had just then appeared in the north-west of Scotland. The _Comet_ began to run regularly between Glasgow and Helensburgh in January 1812, and continued to ply successfully during the summer of that year. At first, however, she brought rather loss than gain to her projector. People were shy of trusting themselves on board, and parties interested in the stage-coaches and sailing vessels, spread all sorts of absurd reports about her. It was not till she had gone for some time without accident, that tourists began to think they might as well save their money and their time by patronizing the new mode of conveyance. In the second year Bell took the _Comet_ off the Clyde, and sent her on a tour round the open coasts of the three kingdoms. Before long the safety and utility of steam navigation was admitted on all hands, and numerous rival enterprises were on foot. In 1820 the _Comet_ was lost between Glasgow and Fort William; and in the following year another of Bell's vessels was burnt to the water-edge--two misfortunes that carried L3000 out of his pocket. His rivals, with abundant capital, soon drove him out of the field, and Bell sank into poverty and neglect. A small annuity from the Clyde trustees, and a subscription among his friends, to keep him from starving, were all the rewards he ever received for his enterprise and perseverance. He died in 1830 in the sixty-fourth year of his age. IV.--OCEAN STEAMERS. In the quarter of a century which elapsed between 1812, when the _Comet_ first began to churn the waters of the Clyde, and 1837, steam navigation progressed steadily and surely. At first, content with plying along rivers and quiet bays, steamers by-and-by ventured out upon the open sea. We owe the regular establishment of deep-sea packets to the courage and enterprise of Mr. David Napier of Glasgow, "who," says Mr. Scott Russell, "has effected more for the improvement of steam navigation than any other man." He was quick to appreciate the capabilities of steam-vessels, and saw that they were fit for something more than mere inland voyages. Before starting one of them upon the open sea, however, he carefully estimated the danger to be encountered and the difficulties to be overcome. He took passage at the worst season of the year in one of the sailing vessels which formerly plied between Glasgow and Belfast, and which often required a week to perform a journey that is now done by steam in a few hours.