A diagram of the engine and paddle wheels of Henry Bell's Comet, the first ever passenger steamer in the Old World. The Comet took passengers down the Clyde. Bell wasalso instrumental in establishing steamer services on the Firth of Forth, the west coast of Scotland, and along the Caledonian Canal as soon as it opened. Thomas Telford, engineer of the canal which was the greatest engineering work of the age, referred to him as 'the ingenious and enterprising Mr Henry Bell'.