Page:History of the Fenian raid on Fort Erie with an account of the Battle of Ridgeway.djvu/20



THE SCENE OF OPERATIONS.

The Niagara frontier has always been, and always will be, a point on which an army directing its efforts against Canada from the United Stales would in all probability march and endeavour to effect a crossing, and it will be advisable here to give an explanation of the relative positions of the important points, in order to enable the reader the better to understand the movements which took place.

The Niagara River leaves the lower end of Lake Erie at Buffalo, and running in a general northerly direction for about thirty-five miles, empties itself into Lake Ontario. About four miles from Lake Erie the river is divided by Grand Island, the main channel running between the Canadian shore and the Island. At the fool of Grand Island lies Navy Island, on the Canadian side, it being about fifteen miles from Lake Erie and about one and a-half miles above the Falls. From the Falls to Queenston, some seven or eight miles, the river flows precipitously between perpendicular banks some 250 feet high; at Queenston the banks diminish to some sixty feet in height, and the river flows smoothly for eight miles into Lake Ontario. Two miles from the Falls is the Suspension Bridge, the only means of crossing between Chippewa and Queenston.

The Welland Canal, which connects Lakes Erie and Ontario, runs from Port Colborne on Lake Erie, distant about seventeen miles from Fort Erie, northery through the villages of Welland, Port Robinson, and Thorold, to St. Catharines, and thence to Port Dalhousie on Lake Ontario, following a course nearly parallel to the Niagara River, and at an average distance of about thirteen miles from it. The Welland River, running from the west at right angles to the Niagara River, intersects the canal at Welland, and empties into the Niagara at Chippewa just above the Falls. It will be seen from this