The finest passenger steamer which has ever been placed on the Lakes is, without exception, the _City of Cleveland_. The hull, built of mild steel, is divided into ten compartments by water-tight cross bulkheads extending from the keel to the main deck. The double bottom, which reaches nearly the entire length of the ship, is also divided into ten compartments, which can be used for water-ballast, and she has a steadying tank holding 100 tons of water and situated amidships to check the rolling in a heavy sea. The _City of Cleveland_ is 400 feet over all, 390 feet keel, 54 feet across the hull, and has a depth of 22 feet. Like nearly all American paddle-steamers she is decked to the full width of the guards. She has seven decks, the main deck, which is of steel, being sheathed with wood to deaden the noise of the handling of cargo. Her electric plant provides 1500 lights, as well as a search-light of 50,000 candle-power. Her engine was constructed by the American Shipbuilding Company and consists of an inclined three-cylinder compound engine, the high pressure being arranged between the two low-pressure cylinders. The high-pressure cylinder is 54 inches in diameter and the low-pressure cylinders are each 82 inches and the stroke of piston is 8 feet. The paddle-wheels are 29 feet in diameter and are fitted with feathering blades, each of which is 14 feet long and 4 feet wide. This steamer makes two trips a day between Detroit and Cleveland, and is credited with having attained to a speed of twenty-four miles an hour. [Illustration: THE “CITY OF CLEVELAND.”] [Illustration: THE “WILLIAM M. MILLS.”] The Canadian-built lake steamers are similar to those from United States yards, and a typical specimen of colonial construction is the _Midland Prince_, launched in 1907 by the Collingwood Shipbuilding Company of Collingwood, Ontario, which, like the _Collingwood_, is an immense freighter. One or two “whalebacks,” a type designed for the Lakes by Captain McDougall, have been seen on the Atlantic occasionally, but they were not a great success. A vessel of this type visited Liverpool some years ago, the _Charles Wetmore_, and having her engines placed aft, and being built with a perfectly flush whaleback, without hatchways, and with a “scow and pig-snout” bow, was a decided curiosity. The ingenuity of her design and the excellent workmanship displayed in her construction impressed naval architects favourably, but there was nothing to show that she was superior as a cargo vessel to the single-deck steamers on this side of the Atlantic. The whaleback steamer is less in favour than it was, even in America, but a good many of them are still to be seen on the Lakes and the Pacific coast. CHAPTER III THE PROGRESS OF STEAM-SHIP BUILDING IN GREAT BRITAIN