This last is called the fastest trip on record.

I will try to show that it was not.

For this reason: the distance between New Orleans and Cairo, when the 'J.

M.White' ran it, was about eleven hundred and six miles; consequently her average speed was a trifle over fourteen miles per hour.

In the 'Eclipse's' day the distance between the two ports had become reduced to one thousand and eighty miles; consequently her average speed was a shade under fourteen and three-eighths miles per hour.