g merger' was
effected by which practically all Canadian lines came under one
control, from the lower Great Lakes, down the St Lawrence, through the
Gulf, and south away to the West Indies. The title of this new merger
is the Canada Steamship Lines Limited. The Canadian Pacific Railway
Company has half a dozen different fleets at work: one on the Atlantic,
another as a trans-Pacific line, a third on the Pacific coast, a fourth
on the lakes of British Columbia, a fifth on the upper Great Lakes, and
a sixth as ferries for its trains. Thus, by taking the upper Great
Lakes and the West, it divides the trans-Canadian waters with the
Canada Steamship Lines, which latter take the lower Great Lakes and the
East. A company whose annual receipts and expenditure are balanced at
not far short of two hundred millions of dollars might well seem to be
all-important in every way, especially when its shipping tonnage
exceeds that of the Allans by over thirty thousand. But this Chronicle
is a history of at least four hundred years; while the famous 'C.P.R.'
has not as yet been either forty years a railway line or twenty years a
shipping firm. There is only one great C.P.R. disaster to record. But
that is of appalling magnitude. Over a thousand lives were lost {151}
when the Norwegian collier _Storstad_ sank the _Empress of Ireland_ off
Rimouski in 1914.

The five principal features of Canadian steamship history have now been
pointed out: John Molson's pioneer boats, the _Royal William_, the
Allan line, the 'R. and O.' (now the Canada Steamship Lines), and the
'C.P.R.' No other individual feature has any noteworthy Canadian
peculiarities. Nor does the general evolution of steam navigation in
or around Canada differ notably, in other respects, from the same
evolution elsewhere. Steamers have adapted themselves to circumstances
in Canada very much as they have in other countries, pushing their
persistent way step by step into all the navigable waters, fresh or
salt. The Canadian waters, especially the fresh waters, certainly have
some marked characteristics of their own, but the steamers have
acquired no special character in consequence.

Both Canadian and visiting steamers have always had their duplicates on
many other oceans, lakes, and rivers. There is the ubiquitous tug;
stubby, noisy, self-assertive, small; but, in its several varieties,
the handiest {152} all-round little craft afloat. It is worth noting
that in the sp