enerally falls to be reckoned in common
with the other places mentioned as a Clyde port; two below Port
Glasgow; and three at Greenock--in all, fifteen establishments,
employing between 4000 and 5000 hands in the construction of iron
hulls alone. This, of course, does not include the army of labourers
dependent for their very existence upon the demand thus created for
materials--such as iron-smelters, forgemen, rivet-makers, &c.; nor
those artisans employed alike on vessels of iron and timber--such as
painters, blacksmiths, blockmakers, riggers, and others. As from the
laying of a keel to the launching of a ship a longer period than six
months rarely elapses, some idea may be formed of the continued press
of work necessary to keep these thousands in full employment, as well
as the dispatch exercised in the completion of orders. From ten to a
dozen ships have been launched from the same building-yard within
twelve months; and a vessel exceeding 1000 tons burden has been
commenced, completed, and fully equipped for sea in little more than
five. On one occasion lately, a passenger-steamer, 160 feet long, 16
feet broad, and capable of accommodating 600 passengers with ease, was
made ready for receiving her machinery in twelve working-days. At this
rate, one would be inclined to fear that business must necessarily
soon come to a dead stop: but there is not the slightest appearance of
such result, nor is it even apprehended. In an age of steam and
electricity, when time and space are threatened with annihilation, it
became necessary to look abroad for some new agent by means of which
the sea, the great highway of nations, might be made still more
subservient to its legitimate purpose. The agent being found, its use
will be commensurate with the growth of commerce, until its fitness is
questioned in turn, and some improved method of conveyance drives its
services from the field. After all, it may be but a step in the proper
direction, an improvement upon the wisdom of our ancestors--another
adaptation of the limitless resources placed at our disposal for
satisfying the growing wants of a race toiling towards a development
as yet unascertained.

The benefits already experienced, and likely still to flow from this
large and growing accession to our marine strength, need scarcely be
commented on. They are self-evident, and recommend themselves alike to
the merchant, the trader, and the mere man of pastime, all of whom are
in som