I have set up a website at http://www.geocities.com/mppraetorius for the histories of merchant (emigration) vessels, both sail and steam, that I have compiled over the course of my research. My interests are primarily American, British, and German emigration sailing vessels of the 19th century, early U.S. ocean-going steamships, and German and Continental ocean-going passenger steamships of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The vessel histories presently online represent only a portion of the histories I have compiled: I shall be adding the others as time permits. (I have in particular histories of all German passenger liners in service prior to World War I.) A note on pictures. Whenever possible I have included a pictorial representation of the vessel in question. To conserve space on the server these pictures are presented in small format, generally no more than 400 pixels wide. In some cases I am able to provide a larger copy of a picture. If the legend to a picture concludes with the sentence "To request a larger copy of this scan, click on the picture," click on the picture and your web browser will automatically generate an email to me with an appropriate subject line. This is an automated procedure (viz., I do not read the messages generated by it), so please do not alter the subject line in any way or use the message generated by this procedure to communicate a personal message to me. Please note also that I am providing these larger scans to you for your personal use only. If you wish to publish a larger scan or to use it on a website, please contact the holder of the original drawing, watercolor, painting, photograph, or model (identified in the legend to the scan on these pages) for permission to do so. Michael Palmer