Another type of vessel is the passenger ship that runs between ports not widely separated on the same coast. The United States has many of these. The ships running between Boston and New York are fast and well equipped. The lounges and dining saloons are handsome, and the staterooms, while they are small, are thoroughly comfortable. These ships are popular, and many travellers prefer the all-night ride on them to spending five hours on the train. Other ships run from New York to Norfolk; from New York to Charleston, Savannah, and Jacksonville. Others still make the longer voyage from New York to New Orleans. On the West Coast similar ships run regularly from Los Angeles and San Francisco to Portland and Seattle and return. Every continent has some ships in similar services, and they often reach ports which have no important land communications system. Such ships connect Japan and Korea; Ceylon and India; ports along the African coast; Marseilles and Tunis; and run on countless other routes. They are comfortable for short voyages, but many of them would not do well at transoceanic work, for in their size and their accommodations they are not comparable to the great ocean liners. * * * * * So far all the ships I have mentioned, save the Great Lakes freighters, float in salt water. But rivers and lakes the world over are often busy with ships, some of them of such size as to place them in a class with ships intended for the deep sea. The greatest fleet of ships in the world on fresh water is the fleet that busies itself on the Great Lakes. During the winter these lakes are frozen and the whole fleet is laid up, which necessitates unusual activity for the rest of the year in order that they may pay their way. From Duluth, on Lake Superior, to Buffalo, on Lake Erie, these ships sail back and forth, deeply laden with the ore of Minnesota or the grain of the great Northwest. Piers specially designed to load the ore carriers pour huge streams of ore into their holds, and within a few hours of their arrival at Duluth the ships are on their way back to Gary or Cleveland or Erie. At these ports the cargoes are taken from their holds at such a speed as is not equalled at any salt-water port in the world.