The boats used wood exclusively--coal was then but little used--and despite the vast forests which covered the face of the land the price of wood in cities rose because of their demand.

Mr.McMaster, the eminent historian, discovers that in 1825 thirteen steamers plying on the Hudson burned sixteen hundred cords of wood per week.

Fourteen hundred cords more were used by New York ferry boats, and each trip of a Sound steamer consumed sixty cords.

The American who traverses the placid waters of Long Island Sound to-day in one of the swift and splendid steamboats of the Fall River or other Sound lines, enjoys very different accommodations from those which in the second quarter of the last century were regarded as palatial.
The luxury of that day was a simple sort at best.

When competition became strong, the old Fulton company, then running boats to Albany, announced as a special attraction the "safety barge." This was a craft without either sails or steam, of about two hundred tons burden, and used exclusively for passengers.