lar and wide, crossing each other generally at
right angles. There is an esplanade fronting the bay which extends for a
distance of two miles. The population of the city has increased from
twelve hundred in 1817 to nearly sixty thousand at present. In the
morning we took a hurried survey of its chief buildings, visited Queen's
Park in the centre of the city, and got round in season to take the
afternoon steamer for Buffalo.

The district situated between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, as it has been
longest settled, so also is it the best-cultivated part of Western
Canada. The vicinity to the two Great Lakes renders the climate more
agreeable, by diminishing the severity of the winters and tempering the
summers' heats. Fruits of various kind arrive at great perfection,
cargoes of which are exported to Montreal, Quebec, and other places
situated in the less genial parts of the eastern province. Mrs. Jameson
speaks of this district as "superlatively beautiful." The only place
approaching a town in size and the number of inhabitants, from the Falls
along the shores of Lake Erie for a great distance, beyond even Grand
River, is Chippewa, situated on the river Welland, or Chippewa, which
empties itself into Niagara Strait, just where the rapids commence and
navigation terminates. One or more steamers run between Chippewa and
Buffalo. Chippewa is still but a small village, but, as it lies directly
on the great route from the Western States of the Union to the Falls of
Niagara and the Eastern States, it will probably rise into importance.
Its greatest celebrity at present arises from the fact of there having
been a great battle fought near by between the British and Americans in
the war of 1812.

The line of navigation by the St. Lawrence did not extend beyond Lake
Ontario until the Welland Canal was constructed. This important work is
thirty-two miles long, and admits ships of one hundred and twenty-five
guns, which is about the average tonnage of the trading-vessels on the
lakes. The Niagara Strait is nearly parallel to the Welland Canal, and
more than one third of it is not navigable. The canal, by opening this
communication between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, has conferred an
immense benefit on all the districts west of Ontario. The great Erie
Canal has been still more beneficial, by connecting the lakes with New
York and the Atlantic by the Hudson River, which the canal joins after a
course of three hundred and sixty miles.