Though wooden ships were still largely employed, the ironclad even then had begun to take a commanding place, and the sailing ship at last disappeared from naval warfare.
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 soon changed the course of all trade with the East, and in a few years the sending of tea per sailing ship round the Cape of Good Hope was a thing of the past.
A sailing ship is supported by the water and requires merely to be propelled; a flying creature and a flying machine constructed on the living type require to be both supported and propelled.
The physical properties of water and air explain in a great measure how the sailing ship differs from the balloon, and how the latter differs from the flying creature and flying machine constructed on the natural type.
The sailing ship is, as it were, immersed in two oceans, viz.
