_Lake Ontario._—The volume of steam traffic on Lake Ontario at the present time, though not to be compared with that on the Upper Lakes, is by no means inconsiderable. From the official “Report of Trade and Navigation of the Dominion for 1895,” the arrival and departure of steamers at eighteen ports of entry on Lake Ontario, either as coasting vessels or as trading with the United States, was 17,558, and an aggregate of 6,443,443 registered tonnage; to which must be added the large amount of steam shipping that frequents the harbours on the American side of the lake, as at Lewiston, Oswego, Sackett’s Harbour, Cape Vincent, and that descends the St. Lawrence to Ogdensburg. Niagara heads the list on the Canadian side with 3,198 arrivals and departures, and 1,581,643 tonnage. Toronto, with 3,844 arrivals and departures, counts for 1,569,123 steam tonnage; Kingston stands third, with 3,563 vessels, and 882,414 tonnage. Hamilton is represented by 427,100 tonnage. After these come Belleville, Picton, Cobourg, Port Hope, Deseronto and Port Dalhousie, in the order named, and eight other smaller ports, each contributing its quota. Toronto is largely interested in steam navigation. Not to speak of numerous steam yachts, ferry steamers and tug-boats, it controls a large passenger traffic. The Niagara Navigation Company of Toronto has three very fine steamers running to Niagara and Lewiston—the _Chicora_, _Chippewa_ and _Corona_. The _Chicora_ was built in England, as a “blockade runner,” more than thirty years ago, but the civil war was ended before she reached this side of the Atlantic. She is an iron side-wheel vessel of 518 tons, with a rakish, Old-Country look about her. The _Chippewa_, built at Hamilton, Ont., in 1893, is a very fine paddle-wheel steamer of 850 tons, modelled somewhat after the Hudson River boats, with a conspicuous walking-beam. The latest addition to the fleet is the _Corona_, launched in May, 1896, from the noted ship-building yard of the Polsons, Toronto, which takes the place of the _Cibola_, a Clyde-built steel steamer, put together by the Rathbun Company, Deseronto, in 1887, and which was burned at Lewiston in 1895. The _Corona_ is claimed by her owners to be “a model of marine architecture, and one of the finest day-steamers in the world!” Though only 277 feet long, and 32 feet beam (59 feet over the guards), she carries nearly two thousand passengers. The hull is constructed of open hearth steel. The engine is of the inclined compound condensing type, and develops nearly two thousand indicated horse-power. The mechanical fittings are all of the most approved kind, and the internal arrangements highly artistic.