of their
shipbuilders, who produced vessels which were the envy and admiration of
our own constructors. As a proof of this statement, it may be mentioned
that, the labour-saving mechanical contrivances adopted by the Americans
were such that, on board their famous liners and clippers, twenty men
could do the work which in a British ship of equal size required thirty,
and, in addition to this advantage, the American vessels could sail
faster and carry more cargo in proportion to their registered tonnage
than our own vessels. It was not till new life was infused into British
naval architecture that we were enabled to conquer the American
competition; and then it was only by producing still better examples of
the very class of ship which the Americans had been the means of
introducing, that we were eventually enabled to wrest from them the
China trade. Another triumph in the domain of technical shipbuilding,
viz., the introduction and successful development of the iron-screw
merchant steamer, eventually secured for the people of this country that
dominion of the seas which remains with them to this day.

Among the great means of advancing technical improvements, none takes
higher rank than a good educational museum; for it enables the student
to learn, as he otherwise cannot learn, the general course which
improvements have taken since the earliest times, and hence to
appreciate the direction which progress will inevitably take in the
future. Here he will learn, for instance, how difficulties have been
overcome in the past, and will be the better prepared to play his part
in overcoming those with which he, in his turn, will be confronted. In
such a museum he can study the advantages conferred upon the owner, by
the successive changes which have been effected in the materials,
construction, and the means of propulsion of ships. He can trace, for
instance, the effects of the change from wood to iron, and from iron to
steel, in the carrying capacity of ships, and he can note the effects of
successive improvements in the propelling machinery in saving weight and
space occupied by engines, boilers, and bunkers; and in conferring upon
a ship of a given size the power of making longer voyages. Here, too, he
can learn how it was that the American clipper supplanted the old
English sailing merchantman, and how the screw iron ship, fitted with
highly economical engines, has practically driven the clipper from the
seas. In fact, wit