For some years she ran between Savannah and New York, and finally ran aground in a storm off Long Island, and went to pieces. England's first vessels to make regular trips across the ocean, were the ships, Sirius and Great Western, in 1838, each averaging seven and a half knots an hour. It was not until 1847 that the first American steamer, the United States, was built expressly for the transatlantic trade, making the voyage in thirteen days. The Britannia, owned by Samuel Cunard, had been running between Liverpool and Boston since 1840, a fourteen-day trip. It is needless to speak of the wonderful achievements in ship-building and sailing in recent years.
Submarine navigation is the latest development of American inventiveness and daring.
The invention of the first practicable telegraph by Samuel F. B. Morse, aided by Alfred Vail and Professor Gail, dating from 1836, is a familiar story. It did not come into general use until 1844. The first duplex system was invented by Joseph B. Stearns, of Boston, in 1872. Thomas A. Edison improved on this in 1874, enabling two messages to be sent the same way on the same wire. In 1875 Elisha Gray extended this into a multiplex system, when the Stearns and Edison systems were combined to form the quadruplex, by which four messages, two each way, can be sent simultaneously along a single wire.