The cold Friday of last winter was experienced all over the country, and at Fort Niagara with extreme severity. We saw wine and jelly glasses here, of excellent quality, which were manufactured at Pittsburgh. The common window-glass used here is also brought from that place; and also lead, from the mines on the Missouri, which cost at Pittsburgh eight dollars per hundred pounds, and in this place nine dollars and a quarter. Lake Ontario never freezes over, although Lake Erie does. The former is generally much deeper, although in some places the latter is sixty fathoms deep. Lake Erie is 230 miles long and sixty wide; Lake Superior is 300 miles long. Michigan 300; Huron 200. Ontario 180. The smallest of these lakes is larger than the Caspian sea. August 4th, Saturday. After breakfast we set out from Fort Schlosser, in a Durham salt boat, drawing two feet water, twenty-five tons burthen, and able to carry 150 bushels of salt, between seventy and eighty feet long, and seven and eight feet wide. She had six men, who pushed her up against the stream. But notwithstanding she had been lightened for our accommodation, our situation was unpleasant. The weather was uncommonly warm, and the captain being absent, the hands were very noisy, intemperate, and disorganizing. The current was sometimes three miles an hour - on an average, two and a-half. Navy Island is in view of Fort Schlosser, and is supposed to be within the British dominions, although this is not certain. It contains 300 acres, and has one squatter. Grand Island is in our jurisdiction, and contains 23,000 acres. The Indian right is not extinguished, and the Indians will not tolerate an[y] intrusions or trespassers on it. It is full of deer, owing to the absence of wolves and settlers. It is about twelve miles long, and its greatest breadth is six miles. At the foot of this island there are the remains of two French vessels, which were formerly burnt, on account of their not being able to escape. The jurisdictional line between Great Britain and the United States ought to have run through the center of the channels of the lakes and rivers, instead of the center of the waters, in order to have effectually secured equal advantages of navigation to both nations. Gill Creek enters the river on the left bank, about half a mile above Fort Schlosser, and is considered as the probable place for the commencement of a canal. It has a good bay and landing, is deep, and about twenty yards wide. Cayuga Creek enters the river on the same side, about three miles higher up. Tonnewanta Island contains ninety acres, and is ten miles from Fort Schlosser, It commences at the mouth of the creek of that name. Ellicott's creek enters Tonnewanta Creek, about 300 yards above its mouth, and just above a bridge erected by General Wilkinson. There is a Rapid seven miles from the mouth of Tonnewanta, and falls about thirty. To the Rapids you may ascend in a canoe. Sturgeon weighing eighty-two pounds have been speared at the Rapids, where there are several good mill seats. The country above them is a wilderness. The Tonnewanta Reservation is twenty-four miles from the river, on this creek. The creek has no bar at its mouth. This information I received from one of our boatmen. We took a cold dinner on board. Despairing of reaching Black Rock with our disorderly fellows, we landed at a tavern about a mile above Tonnewanta Creek, and took to our carriages. The disorderly spirit of our boatmen had extended itself to the driver, and I had to silence his importance. In a short time we passed a considerable stream; the road was bad, but the country pleasant. The meadows on the river were fine, and the land improved on both sides, after you pass the upper end of Grand Island. One Dayton, who keeps a tavern four miles from Black Rock, purchased two years ago eighty acres, at four dollars per acre. I saw a fish-hawk flying with a very large fish in his talons, and a strange bird with a large head, his body speckled, and wings appeared touched with red when he flew. He was not quite the size of a blue-bird. At Black Rock we saw a great number of barrels of salt, and several square-rigged vessels, and had a beautiful view of Lake Erie . . . . (The above was published in the March 2004 edition of "Fortress Niagara," the Newsletter-Journal of the Old Fort Niagara Association, editor Harry M. DeBan, pgs. 9-14. Permission to post it has been granted. To view the entire journal on line go to http://www.history.rochester.edu/canal/bib/campbell/Chap06.html.