Notwithstanding the large amount of money expended by the Canadian Government upon its unrivalled St. Lawrence canals and the deepening of its waterways, the volume of western traffic that comes this way is as yet disappointingly small. The great bulk of the trade in western produce, Canadian and American, finds its way to the seaboard in American vessels by way of Buffalo, Oswego and Ogdensburg to New York and Boston. What effect the deepening of the canals to fourteen feet will have on this deviation from the “natural outlet” remains to be seen. From a statement kindly furnished by Mr. T. F. Taylor, Marine Inspector at Kingston, it appears that the number of companies in Canada having steamers and other craft engaged in the commerce of the Great Lakes is twenty-four. Three of these go no farther than the head of Lake Ontario, three extend their operations to Lake Erie, five to Lake Huron, and thirteen to Lake Superior. Five steamers are employed on Lake Erie, thirteen on Lake Huron, twenty-six navigate the waters of Lake Superior. About one-half of these steamers are first-class steel freight and passenger vessels of from 1,200 to 2,600 tons each. A few of them pass through the Welland Canal and have their cargoes transhipped into barges at Kingston or Prescott. Others connect with lines of railway at Sault Ste. Marie, Owen Sound, Collingwood, Windsor and Sarnia. Occasionally one or two of the smaller ones run through to Montreal. Besides the steamers, there are employed in the lakes’ grain trade twenty-one lake barges, each of 50,000 bushels capacity, and fourteen tug steamers. There is also a fleet of about sixty-two sailing vessels trading between the Upper Lakes and Kingston, and some sixty or seventy barges employed in transporting grain from that port to Montreal. [Illustration: C. P. R. SS. “ALBERTA,” 1883.]