[30] The _Duke of Wellington_ was 240.6 feet long, 60 feet beam, 3,826 tons burthen, and 2,500 horse-power. She was engined by Robert Napier & Sons, Glasgow, with geared engines and wooden cogs, and made 10.2 knots an hour on her trial trip in 1853. The _Rattler_, of 1851, was 179½ feet long, 32¾ feet beam, had geared engines of 436 horse-power, and attained a speed of 10 knots. [31] See also p. 90. [32] Based on a compilation by Captain W. H. Smith. [33] “Encyclopedia Brit.,” Vol. xvii., p. 581, 8th Ed. CHAPTER VII. THE ST. LAWRENCE ROUTE. The Allan, Dominion, Beaver, and other Canadian Lines of Ocean Steamships—Sir Hugh Allan—A Fast Line Service, etc., etc. Were it not that the St. Lawrence is hermetically sealed for five months of the year, it would undoubtedly be a more formidable rival to the Hudson than it now is. That great drawback, however, is not the only one. The navigation of the St. Lawrence has always been somewhat difficult and hazardous. The seven hundred and fifty miles of land-locked water from Quebec to Belle Isle is notorious for swift and uncertain tides and currents, for treacherous submerged reefs and rocks, and shoals in long stretches of the river, for blinding snow-storms and fields of floating ice in the lower reaches at certain seasons of the year, for icebergs which abound on the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland, and for bewildering fogs. With such a combination of difficulties it is not to be wondered at that shipwrecks have been frequent; that they have not been more numerous must be mainly attributed to good seamanship and an intimate knowledge of the route. Nautical appliances and charts are very much better than they were thirty or forty years ago. The efficiency of the lighthouse system has been greatly increased, and, what is vastly important, the masters of mail steamers are no longer restricted to time, but on the contrary are instructed that whenever the risk of life or of the ship is involved, speed must be sacrificed to safety. The St. Lawrence route has some advantages over the other. It is nearly five hundred miles shorter from Quebec to Liverpool than from New York. Other things being equal, passengers by this route have the advantage of 750 miles of smooth water at the beginning or end of their voyage, as the case may be. For these and other reasons many prefer the St. Lawrence route. It has become popular even with a good many Americans, especially from the Western States, and will certainly become more so if the contemplated “fast service” is realized, by which the ocean voyage—from land to land—would be curtailed to three days and a half!