In these days of ocean steamer com petition, when rival companies are doing their best to annihilate time and distance ; when, as the latest develop ment, we are promised a steamer that shall travel at the astounding rate of forty knots per hour, it is interesting to be reminded now and then of the earliest efforts of the new era of steam ships. The most remarkable was the Great Eastern, or the Leviathan as she was originally christened. When she lay on the stocks at Scott Bussell's yard on the Thames, all England talked about her as the wonder of the age. Her gigantic size, her vast machinery, her splendid appearance,her boasted superiority in speed and safety were on every tongue, and when she was launched it was in the presence of an enormous crowd, and as she lay at her moorings she was visited by innumerable people. A proposal was made that Government should charter her for the conveyance of troops, of which she could accommodate ten thousand, but this was over ruled in the House of Oommons, it being wisely pointed ont that the risk of the loss of such an immense body of our troops, was too great to justify Government in shipping them by one vessel. The vessel was em ployed to lay the second Atlantic cable, and for a time she carried passengers across the Atlantic. Wherever she went she was the observed of all ob servers. For years past she has been laid up, or used for various unimpor tant purposes, and the other day when we read of her having been purchased and altered to run in the Anglo- Australian trade, it seemed to recall an almost forgotten story. For the rising generation, the announcement has but little interest, for ua who remember the , building of the ship, it has a curious interest. For the vessel has been sin gularly unlucky. The building of her was the ruin of Scott Bussell, the most eminent shipbuilder of his day. When she was launched one or two men were killed by a sudden accident at a wind lass, and the excitement of the launch induced in Isambard King dom Brunei, the great engineer who designed her, an affection of the nerves which carried him off suddenly. 