, such as that between New York and Western European ports,
had been already sealed; but, for distant countries, such as China and
Australia, and for cargo-carrying purposes in many trades, the
sailing-ship was still able to hold its own. Fig. 72 represents an
American three-masted clipper called the _Ocean Herald_, built in the
year 1855. She was 245 ft. long, 45 ft. in beam, and of 2,135 tons. Her
ratio of length to breadth was 5.45 to 1.

Fig. 73 is an illustration of the _Great Republic_, which was one of the
finest of the American clippers owned by Messrs. A. Law and Co., of New
York. She was 305 ft. long, 53 ft. beam, 30 ft. depth of hold, and of
3,400 tons. She was the first vessel fitted with double topsails. Her
spread of canvas, without counting stay-sails, amounted to about 4,500
square yards. She had four decks, and her timber structure was
strengthened from end to end with a diagonal lattice-work of iron.

The speed attained by some of these vessels was most remarkable. In 1851
the _Nightingale_, built at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in a race from
Shanghai to Deal, on one occasion ran 336 knots in twenty-four hours. In
the same year the _Flying Cloud_, one of Donald McKay's American
clippers, ran 427 knots in twenty-four hours in a voyage from New York
to San Francisco. This performance was eclipsed by that of another
vessel belonging to the same owner, the _Sovereign of the Seas_, which
on one occasion averaged over eighteen miles an hour for twenty-four
consecutive hours. This vessel had a length of keel of 245 ft., 44 ft. 6
in. beam, and 25 ft. 6 in. depth of hold. She was of 2,421 tons
register.

[Illustration: FIG. 71.--The _Sir John Franklin_. American Transatlantic
sailing-packet. 1840.]

[Illustration: FIG. 72.--The _Ocean Herald_. American clipper. 1855.]

English shipowners were very slow to adopt these improvements, and it
was not till the year 1850, after the abolition of the navigation laws,
that our countrymen really bestirred themselves to produce sailing-ships
which should rival and even surpass those of the Americans. The
legislation in question so affected the prospects of British shipping,
that nothing but the closest attention to the qualities of vessels and
to economy in their navigation could save our carrying trade from the
effects of American competition. Mr. Richard Green, of the Blackwall
Line, was the first English shipbuilder to take up the American
challenge. In the year 185