Since the Savannah was primarily a sailing vessel, the loss of steam power by the crippling of the engine would not be serious, as she could continue on her way with paddle-wheels removed and under full sail.

It was 19 years later that the idea of employing vessels propelled by steam in trade between the United States and England came under the serious consideration of merchants and ship builders.  In the interval the marine boiler and the engines had been improved until they had passed the stage of experiment, and coasting voyages had become common on both sides of the Atlantic.

The beginning of real transatlantic steam voyages was made by the Sirius and the Great Western.  The latter boat had been built especially for trips across the ocean and the former was taken from the Cork and London line.  The Sirius started from Liverpool on April 4, 1838, and the Great Western four days later.  They arrived in New York within 24 hours of each other, the Sirius at 10 p.m. on April 22 and the Great Western at 3 o’clock the following afternoon.  Neither of the vessels carried much sail.

These boats gave more or less irregular service until withdrawn because of their failure to pay expenses.  In 1839 the Cunard Company was formed and the paddle steamers Britannia, Arcadia, Columbia, and Caledonia were put into service.

From that time on the steamer developed with great rapidity, the value of which was never more demonstrated than at the present time.  It will always be remembered, however, that this Capt.  Rogers with his crude little Savannah was the man whose bold enterprise gave birth to the idea of transatlantic travel under steam.

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(A syndicate Sunday magazine section of the Harrisburg Patriot)

SEARCHING FOR THE LOST ATLANTIS

By GROSVENOR A. PARKER

Not so long ago a stubby tramp steamer nosed its way down the English Channel and out into the Atlantic.  Her rusty black bow sturdily shouldered the seas aside or shoved through them with an insistence that brought an angry hail of spray on deck.  The tramp cared little for this protest of the sea or for the threats of more hostile resistance.  Through the rainbow kicked up by her forefoot there glimmered and beckoned a mirage of wealthy cities sunk fathoms deep and tenanted only by strange sea creatures.  For the tramp and her crew there was a stranger goal than was ever sought by an argosy of legend.  The lost cities of Atlantis and all the wealth that they contain was the port awaiting the searchers under the rim of the western ocean.

It’s no wild-goose chase that had started thus unromantically.  The men who hope to gain fame and fortune by this search are sure of their ground and they have all the most modern mechanical and electrical aids for their quest.  On the decks of their ship two submarine boats are cradled in heavy timbers.  One of them is of the usual type, but the other looks like a strange fantasy of another Jules Verne.  A great electric eye peers cyclops-wise over the bow and reaching ahead of the blunt nose are huge crab-like claws delicate enough to pick up a gold piece and strong enough to tear a wall apart.