A starboard-side view of the mail steamship 'Atlantic' on the River Mersey bound for New York. The 'Atlantic' was one of the four original ships of the Collins Line (the New York and Liverpool US Mail Steamship Company). When the service started in 1850, the Collins ships were the fastest, largest, and most luxuriously decorated steamships in the world. In the print, passengers at the deck of the stern exchange greetings with passengers on a smaller steamboat passing perpendicular the 'Atlantic.'