The Great North Atlantic Steamship Race
G.G. Hatheway describes how British-Canadian and American companies entered upon a nineteenth century contest in transatlantic crossings.
Her majesty’s 10-gun brig, Tyrian, twenty days out of Halifax, bound for Bristol, rocked gently on the swells of the North Atlantic. She was becalmed; most of her passengers lounged on deck watching the western horizon where a dirty, black smudge was growing steadily larger. Soon, at the base of the smudge, they could discern the paddle-steamer Sirius, which was bound on the return journey from New York to Liverpool.