Two centuries of shipbuilding by the Scotts at Greenock

14 The Ascendancy of British Ships.
ship she carried a large cargo on board, and made her
first trip to Sydney in seventy days, which had not then
been surpassed. 1 She made the passage from Shanghai to
London in eighty-seven days, with 1030 tons of tea on board.
In one trip she averaged 320 nautical miles for five con-
secutive days. When engaged in the celebrated race
for the delivery of the season's teas from Foo-chow-foo to
London, in 1856, the Lord of the Isles beat two of the
fastest American clippers, of almost twice her tonnage.
She " delivered her cargo without one spot of damage,
and thus British ships regained their ascendency in the
trade which their American rivals had far too long
monopolised."' 2 From that time the British sailing ships
gradually gained a complete superiority over the American
vessels, and carried all before them, until they in turn
were supplanted by the British steamship. From time to
time an occasional sailing ship was constructed of steel ;
the latest, the Archibald Russell, is illustrated. Built for
Messrs. John Hardie and Company, this vessel has a length,
between perpendiculars, of 278 ft., a beam of 43 ft., and a
depth, moulded, of 26 ft., and carries 3930 tons of dead-
weight cargo on a draught of 21 ft. 7^ in. But less than
1 per cent, of ships now constructed depend upon the
unbought but uncertain winds, and then only for special
trades. On regular routes the steamer is now almost
paramount, and it was, therefore, appropriate in the highest
degree that the first vessels to steam regularly to China,
vid the Cape, should, like the Lord of the Isles, be built
by the Scotts ; but that belongs to another story.
1 Murray's " Shipbuilding in Iron and Wood," page 60.
2 Lindsay's "Merchant Shipping," vol. iii, page 294.