The history of the celebrated clipper ships in the Chinese opium and tea trades. Many of the incidents relating to the great tea races, typhoons, shipwrecks, etc., and the fine performances of seamanship and daring navigation, have been gathered from the men who participated in them. There is an account of the Chinese opium trade and the clippers engaged in this risky, but lucrative traffic., Then the wonderful American clippers, which in the forties threatened the supremacy of Great Britain as the carrier of the world. Part II, is entirely composed of an account of the British tea clippers of the sixties and their splendid performances. Plans and scale models of many of the best-known clippers will prove interesting to modern designers and builders. Many beautiful illustrations are given, reproduced from paintings and lithographs, and collected by the author with difficulty owing to their scarcity. In the appendix will be found the logs of some of the fastest voyages and passages ever made by vessels under sail.