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314 vessel about 50 feet long, built at Horsley, England, in 1821; and the first screw steamer of any importance was the Archimedes, an iron vessel of 237 tons, built in England in 1839. The Great Britain, built at Bristol, England, in 1843, was the first screw, as well as the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic, but it was not until 1850, when the Inman liner City of Glasgow began to run regularly between Liverpool and Philadelphia, that iron screw steamers took a recognized place upon the ocean.

It is to be noticed how closely these last dates correspond with those of the clipper ship era, which opened with the advent of the Rainbow in 1843, and was brought to its greatest brilliancy through the discovery of gold in California and Australia in 1848 and 1851. At this time each nation was devoting its best talents to developing the material that lay nearest at hand; and while the American wooden-built type was earlier brought to perfection, its possibilities were more limited by natural causes. Greater economy, durability, and regularity of speed on the part of the iron screw steamer were the qualities that finally drove from the seas the far more picturesque and beautiful wooden sailing ship.

The supremacy held by the merchant marine of the United States in 1851 was maintained until about 1856, and during this period American ships continued to be built, bought, and chartered by British ship-owners; but after the great financial depression which affected both countries from 1857 to 1859, British ship-owners no longer needed