almost fairy fingers, entwines the meshes of the most delicate fabric that adorns the female form.[1]
(60.) The Fifth Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Holyhead Roads furnishes ample proof of the great superiority of steam vessels. The following extracts are taken from the evidence of Captain Rogers, the commander of one of the packets:
"Quest. Are you not perfectly satisfied, from the experience you have had, that the steam vessel you command is capable of performing what no sailing vessel can do?"
"Ans. Yes."
"Quest. During your passage from Gravesend to the Downs, could any square-rigged vessel, from a first-rate down to a sloop of war, have performed the voyage you did in the time you did it in the steam boat?"
"Ans. No; it was impossible. In the Downs we passed several Indiamen, and 150 sail there that could not move down the channel; and at the back of Dungeness we passed 120 more."
"Quest. At the time you performed that voyage, with the weather you have described, from the Downs to Milford, if that weather had continued twelve months, would any square-rigged vessel have performed it?"
"Ans. They would have been a long time about it; probably, would have been weeks instead of days. A sailing vessel would not have beat up to Milford, as we did, in twelve months."
- ↑ The importance and diversified applications of the steam-engine were most ably enforced in the speeches made at a public meeting, held (June 1824) for the purpose of proposing the erection of a monument to the memory of James Watt; these were subsequently printed.
