The Strait of Niagara, or the Niagara River, as it is commonly called, ranks among the wonders of the world. The study of this stream is of intense and special interest to many classes of people, notably historians, archæologists, botanists, geologists, artists, mechanics, and electricians. It is doubtful if there is anywhere another thirty-six miles of riverway that can, in this respect, compare with it. The term "strait" as applied to the Niagara correctly suggests the river's historic importance. The expression, recurring in so many of the relations of French and English military officers, "on this communication" also indicates Niagara's position in the story of the discovery, conquest, and occupation of the continent. It is probably the Falls which, technically, make Niagara a river; and so, in turn, it is the Falls that rendered Niagara an important strategic key of the vast waterway stretching from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the head of Lake Superior. The lack--so far as it does exist--of historic interest in the immediate Niagara region, the comparative paucity of military events of magnitude along that stream during the old French and the Revolutionary wars proves, on the one hand, what a wilderness separated the English on the South from the French on the North, and, on the other, how strong "the communication" was between Quebec and the French posts in the Middle West. It does not prove that Niagara was the less important. The Falls increased the historic importance of Niagara because it limited navigation and made a portage necessary; the purposes of trade and missionary enterprise, as well as those of conquest, demanded that this point be occupied, and occupation necessarily meant defence. Here, from Lewiston and Queenston to Chippewa and Port Day (to use modern names) ran the two most famous portage paths of the continent. Here were to be seen at one time or another the footprints of as famous explorers, noble missionaries, and brave soldiers as ever went to conquest in history. The Niagara River was important in the olden time to every mile of territory drained by the waters that flowed through it. What an empire to hold in fee! Here lies more than one-half the fresh water of the world--the solid contents being, according to Darby 1,547,011,792,300,000; it would form a solid cubic column measuring nearly twenty-two miles on each side.