According to Lloyds Register above quoted, the total number of steam vessels, over 100 tons, in the world in 1897 was 13,652, and their gross tonnage, 17,737,825 tons. The number of wooden steamers was 1,163; of iron, 7,099, and 5,390 of steel.
The British Empire owns 54 per cent. of the entire merchant marine tonnage of the world, estimated by Lloyds at 25,614,089 tons gross; she owns 62 per cent. of the entire merchant marine steam tonnage.
If to these figures were added the number of steam vessels in the navies of the world, the grand total would be very largely increased. The British navy alone would increase the number of vessels by 700 at least, and the tonnage by more than 1,500,000 tons.
Reliable statistics are not easily found and are often accounted dry reading. From a variety of causes, figures are peculiarly prone to err. But whatever may be thought of the merely numerical argument which has almost unavoidably been introduced in these pages, the indisputable fact remains, that of all the triumphs of mind over matter in this nineteenth century nothing has contributed more to the advancement of civilization and the spread of Christianity, to the wealth of nations and the convenience and comfort of the human race, than the marvellous development of steam navigation which will ever be identified with the history of the illustrious reign of Her Majesty QUEEN VICTORIA.
[62] Mr. John Ross Robertson’s “Landmarks of Toronto” (Toronto: 1896) contains an account of nearly all the steamboats that have plied on Lake Ontario and the Upper St. Lawrence from 1816 to 1895.
[63] From notes by Rev. Professor Bryce, LL. D., of Winnipeg.
[64] Mr. J. A. Thomson, Inspector of Steamboats for British Columbia, furnished the information contained in these notes.
[65] Vancouver Island was at that time a British possession—leased to the Hudson’s Bay Company. When the lease expired, in 1859, the Island was made a Crown colony, and the old fort, with the large cattle farm attached to it, became the site of the beautiful city of Victoria, with its fine streets, electric railways, magnificent public buildings, palatial residences, a population of 23,000, and real estate valued at $20,000,000. The Island and British Columbia were made one Province in 1866, and entered the Dominion in 1871.
