The History of North Atlantic Steam Navigation. By Henry Fry.
(Sampson Low, Marston, and Co.)—Various writers have treated the subject which Mr. Fry handles in these pages, but no one, we imagine, with exactly the same claim to be heard. " I was present," he writes in his preface, "at the launch of the first steamship built for the North Atlantic trade in 1837," and " have watched every Atlantic steamship with the deepest interest for fifty-six years." After an introductory account of early naviga- tion, Mr. Fry disposes of the claim of the Savannah.' She made her first voyage from Savannah to Liverpool in twenty- nine days eleven hours, but worked her engines for eighty hours only of that time. The 'Royal William' of Quebec was the first ship that crossed the Atlantic by steam. She did it in twenty-five days. The ' Great Western' started from Bristol on April 8th, 1838, and reached New York in fifteen days. Cabin fare was £33, for a state-room 251 103. Her best time, eastward, was ten days ten hours fifteen minutes. She ran for nine years. The ill-fated President' was launched in 1839, and was lost on her voyage from New York in March, 1841. Mr. Fry goes through the story of successive improvements in build, size, and speed. There are now more than a hundred great steamships, belonging to sixteen lines, that constitute the Atlantic Ferry." Of these the Hamburg line stands easily at the head with twenty vessels ; North German Lloyd comes next with ten ; the Cunard and the Netherlands lino have eight each. The Campania,' belonging to the Cunard, comes first with 12,950 tonnage, 30,000 horse-power, and capacity for two thousand passengers ; the Lucania ' is a twin ship, in the same line. Then come four ships of the American line, St. Louis,' St. Paul," Paris,' New York.' Rather more than two-thirds of the whole number were built in British yards.
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