it is only of late years that there has been direct communication by sea between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and the Pacific Mail Company, after once getting its steamers round into the Pacific, had always carried passengers, the mails, and specie with transshipment at Panama. The demand for the California clippers ceased when rapid transportation of cargoes round Cape Horn became no longer necessary.
Besides the competition between sail and steam, there was also going on for many years, as has already been suggested, the attempt to substitute iron for wood in the construction of vessels, and screw propellers for paddle-wheels as a means of propulsion by steam. In both branches of this transition, which were parallel but not necessarily connected, Great Britain took the lead, and she has rightfully reaped the benefit.
How gradually the change came about will be seen from the following facts and figures: The first iron sailing ship was the Vulcan, built on the Clyde in 1818, and in the following year the first sailing vessel with an auxiliary engine crossed the Atlantic. This was the Savannah, a wooden ship of 850 tons, with portable paddles and an engine and boiler on deck. She was built at New York. The first vessel to cross the Atlantic using steam-power during the entire voyage was the Royal William, which was taken from Quebec to London in 1833; and in 1838 the first steamers of British build, the Great Western and the Sirius, made the westward passage. The first steamer constructed of iron was the Aaron Manby, a small paddle-wheel
