OF THE RIVER SAINT LAWRENCE. 



289 



at top — forty-three and a half feet at low water. The lift of these locks is eleven and a 

 half feet maximum, three and a half feet minimum. 



All these St. Lawrence Canals admit of vessels having an extreme length of one hundred 

 and eighty-five feet, forty -four feet beam, and nine feet draft ; but the Cornwall Canal 

 would admit of the passage of vessels with fifty-three feet beam. 



The traffic on this part of the river consists of through passenger traffic, which usually 

 assumes some importance about the first week of July, and continues until about the 

 middle of September. The vessels engaged in this traffic are lake-going steamers, which 

 run in connection, more or less, with some of the railways on both sides of the lake, and 

 either in close connection, or in violent competition, with the railways for the through 

 traffic in passengers, which it may be here stated, in the course of the summer can be 

 barely remunerative to either system of transit. The steamers have, usually, side wheels; 

 are very lightly built, having a draft not exceeding six feet ; and they perform the distance 

 from Toronto to Kingston, about one hundred and seventy miles (usually by night), in 

 fourteen hours; and from Kingston to Montreal, shooting all the Rapids, in about thirteen 

 hours, the distance being one hundred and seventy-five miles. 



This route, which is a highly popular one in the country, and taken by all the strangers 

 who visit, is very attractive through a certain degree of hazard and interest which is at- 

 tached to the "shooting of the llapids." This matter has been so frequently described, 

 that it will be unnecessary to offer further comment than will be suggested to any prac- 

 tical mind, and it is believed that few, after seriously thinking over the subject, would ven- 

 ture to recommend the passage of a vessel two hundred feet long, of the flimsiest construc- 

 tion, down a rapid tortuous channel, frequently much less than two hundred feet wide, 

 filled with rocks and boulders of enormous size, and with currents, eddies, and slackwater, 

 as embarrassing as it is possible to conceive of in any navigation. 



The traffic of the kind mentioned has been only estimated ; exact statistics cannot be 

 obtained ; but until within the last three years, the boats were constantly crowded with 

 passengers for three or four months in the year. 



It need scarcely be added that the boats return to the point from whence they came by 

 the canals, upper river, and lake, and that they depend for their subsistence chiefly upon 

 the western bound freight in merchandise from Montreal, the chief city of commerce in 

 Canada. The most extensive and important business is carried on by screw propellers, as 

 well as by lake and river schooners, scows and barges. Towing is performed for the most 

 part by steamers. 



The water communication between Montreal and the State of New York is carried on 

 by rather an indirect line of navigation, down the Eiver St. Lawrence to the embouchure 

 of the Richelieu, forty-five miles below Montreal, and about one hundred and thirty-five 

 vol. xi] i. — 87 



