Between these cities there is a constant battle for prestige. Now one leads in tonnage received, now another. At the present time the bitterest rivalry exists between Cleveland, Ashtabula, and Conneaut, the three greatest ore ports in the world. In 1901, Ashtabula led. In 1902, Cleveland bore away the “pennant,” with Ashtabula and Conneaut second and third. Cleveland was still ahead in 1903, but in 1904, Conneaut became the greatest ore-receiving port in the world. In 1905, Ashtabula had again won the ascendency, and in 1906, she maintained her prestige, receiving in that year 6,833,352 tons; Cleveland was second, and Conneaut third. Lorain, Fairport, Ashtabula, Conneaut, and Erie practically exist because of the ore which comes down from the northern mines. Seven million dollars are now being expended in the improvement of Ashtabula harbour by the Lake Shore and Pennsylvania railroad companies, and the capacity of the harbour has been doubled since 1905. With the improvement of that harbour Conneaut’s greatest advantage will be gone, for until a comparatively recent date nearly all of the largest vessels went to that port. The tremendous activity in Ashtabula must be seen to be fully appreciated. In one day lately almost four thousand ore and coal cars were moved between that port and Youngstown. At this end of the great ore industry the wonderful mechanism for the handling of cargoes is even more astonishing than that of the Northland. The ore carrier is run under a huge unloading machine which thrusts steel arms down into the score or more hatches of the vessel, and without the assistance of human hands the cargo is emptied so quickly that the uninitiated observer stands mute with astonishment. How quickly this work is done is shown in the record of the _George W. Perkins_, which discharged 10,346 tons at Conneaut in four hours and ten minutes. Once more, after this unloading, the steel monster of the Lakes is all but ready for her long journey into the North. Within a few hours she is reloaded, with a few sonorous blasts of her whistle she bids a last adieu, and again she is off on the long trail that leads to the “ugly wealth” in the ore ranges of Superior. III What the Ships Carry--Other Cargoes Not long ago I went to see William Livingstone, President of the Lake Carriers’ Association--Great Admiral, in a way, of the world’s mightiest fleet of steel--an enrolled navy of 593 ships and a tonnage of nearly one million nine hundred thousand. Unconsciously I had come to call this man the Grey Man and the Man who Knows. Both titles fit, as they will tell you from the twin Tonawandas to Duluth. For six consecutive years president of the greatest organisation of its kind on earth, an association of ships made up, if weighed, of half of the iron and steel floating on the Inland Seas, he has become a part of Lake history. I sought him for an idea. I found it.