You may already know Mark Twain as the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Mark Twain was born in 1835 as Samuel Langhorne Clemens. In his autobiographical book, Life on the Mississippi, he wrote, “When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was to be a steamboatsman. Other ambitions faded out, each in its turn; but the ambition to be a steamboatsman always remained.” When he was little more than twenty years old, Clemens achieved his boyhood ambition—he became a riverboat pilot. A riverboat pilot steers ships in and out of port, often through dangerous waters. In order to keep the ship from running aground, it’s important for the pilot to remain constantly aware of the depth of the water. In Clemens’s time, the water’s depth was measured by throwing in a line with a lead weight attached—which is why the men who read the line were called “leadsmen.” When a leadsman measured a depth of two fathoms—a fathom is six feet—he would cry out, “Mark twain!” (Twain is an old-fashioned word for “two.”) That cry gave Clemens the pen name by which we know him best. Pilot: a person employed to steer a ship in and out of port, often through dangerous waters; a “cub pilot” is a pilot in training Question: How is being a riverboat pilot like being an airplane pilot? Ill gift brainiest to anyone who answers good