the business
of the old packets, and the Confederate cruisers were not needed to
complete the work. But in their day these were grand examples of marine
architecture. The first of the American transatlantic lines was the Black
Ball line, so called from the black sphere on the white pennant which its
ships displayed. This line was founded in 1815, by Isaac Wright & Company,
with four ships sailing the first of every month, and making the outward
run in about twenty-three days, the homeward voyage in about forty. These
records were often beaten by ships of this and other lines. From thirteen
to fifteen days to Liverpool was not an unknown record, but was rare
enough to cause comment.

It was in this era that the increase in the size of ships began--an
increase which is still going on without any sign of check. Before the War
of 1812 men circumnavigated the world in vessels that would look small now
carrying brick on the Tappan Zee. The performances of our frigates in 1812
first called the attention of builders to the possibilities of the bigger
ship. The early packets were ships of from 400 to 500 tons each. As
business grew larger ones were built--stout ships of 900 to 1100 tons,
double-decked, with a poop-deck aft and a top-gallant forecastle forward.
The first three-decker was the "Guy Mannering," 1419 tons, built in 1849
by William H. Webb, of New York, who later founded the college and home
for ship-builders that stands on the wooded hills north of the Harlem
River. In 1841, Clark & Sewall, of Bath, Me.--an historic house--built the
"Rappahannock," 179.6 feet long, with a tonnage of 1133 tons. For a time
she was thought to be as much of a "white elephant" as the "Great Eastern"
afterwards proved to be. People flocked to study her lines on the ways and
see her launched. They said only a Rothschild could afford to own her, and
indeed when she appeared in the Mississippi--being built for the cotton
trade--freights to Liverpool instantly fell off. But thereafter the size
of ships--both packet and clippers--steadily and rapidly increased.
Glancing down the long table of ships and their records prepared for the
United States census, we find such notations as these.

Ship "Flying Cloud," built 1851; tonnage 1782; 374 miles in one day; from
New York to San Francisco in 89 days 18 hours; in one day she made 433-1/2
miles, but reducing this to exactly 24 hours, she made 427-1/2 miles.

Ship "Comet," built 1851; tonnage 1836;