IN this book I have attempted to give some account of the beautiful sailing ships which played so great a part in the development of the great British Dominions under the Southern Cross. It is written specially for the officers and seamen of our Mercantile Marine, and I have endeavoured to avoid such a criticism as the following Heaps about other ships, but my old barkey was one of the fastest and best known of them all and he dismisses her with a line or two.