A Louisiana historian and collector, Mr. Huber wrote “Heyday of the Floating Palace,” an article about early Mississippi steamboats, in the October, 1957, AMERICAN HERITAGE . All illustrations are from the collection of the author except the tableau scene on page 20, which appeared in Harper’s Weekly for March 29, 1873, and the water colors on the opposite page, which are from the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane University.