It is always intriguing to trace the accomplishment of great endeavours right back to their smallest beginnings, and it may be that the pride of the British Mercantile Marine, the s. Queen Mary, can be said to have its origin in the manufacture of a hammer os far back as 1815 by one Robert Napier, later known as the most skilled marine engineer of his day. For the manufacture this "essay" hammer admitted Napier to the Corporation of—Hammermen, Glasgow, and he was encouraged in this way to begin a career which Ted him eventually to take a leading part in the founding of the Cunard Line.
By a strange ce-incidence, on the very day that the Queen' Mary's capture of the Blue Riband was announced in Shanghai, a book came into the temporary possession of the "North-China "Daily News" which gives the full history of the life of this remarkable man, who from the smallest beginnings transferred the shipbuilding centre of the British Isles from London and the Berenice, at a cost of £30,000. This was the Arst_ocean-going craft to be engined by Napier, and was completed in 1837. 'The' success of the Bernice was one of Napler's frst triumphs over his English rivals, and helped to dissipate the prejudice against Scottish engineers, and estabolish the Clyde as an engineering centre, Orders from the Government followed and to cope with the ever-Increasing number of contracts which were coming into his hands, Napier leased, and subsequently bought, his cousin's works at Lancefield, taking his brother James Napier, himself an accomplished engineer, into partnership.
Trans-Atlantic Steamships So much for the beginnings of Napler's spectacular career. But by far the most interesting work ac-
Liverpool to the Clyde, overcoming all the prejudices, (and they were many), which existed against Scottish shipbuilders, these even being entertained at one time by the Govern-|" ment, There are, it is believed, not more than three or four copies of this book in existence, and it became available solely through the kindness of a|/y
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.