yond than was afforded by the Great Western. The
London and Port Stanley, built in 1854-56, mainly by the city of
London, with smaller contributions from Middlesex and Elgin counties
and the city of St Thomas, failed to realize the expectations that it
would become the main artery of trade between Canada and the states
across the lake, but it developed a fair excursion trade and coal
traffic, and indirectly justified its construction. The Erie and
Ontario portage road, rebuilt in 1854, has already been noted. Another
portage road round Niagara Falls was the Welland Railway, planned by W.
Hamilton Merritt, {91} the projector of the Welland Canal. It ran from
Port Colborne on Lake Erie to Port Dalhousie on Lake Ontario,
twenty-five miles, and was completed in 1859, only to add one more to
the list of unprofitable roads, and eventually to be absorbed by the
Great Western.

Farther east the rivalry of Port Hope and Cobourg led to the
construction of two roads, the Cobourg and Peterborough and the Port
Hope, Lindsay and Beaverton. Both relied chiefly on timber traffic and
aimed to develop the farming country in the rear. The Cobourg line,
begun in 1853, suffered disaster from the start: the contractor's
extras absorbed all the cash available; the three-mile bridge built on
piles across Rice Lake gave way, and after $1,000,000 had been expended
the road was sold for $100,000. The Port Hope line, which absorbed a
branch from Millbrook to Peterborough in 1867, fared somewhat better.
The Brockville and Ottawa was a lumber road, carrying supplies up and
timber down. It was chartered to run from Brockville to Pembroke, with
a branch from Smith's Falls on the Rideau Canal to Perth. By 1859 it
had reached Almonte, and six years later struggled as far as Sand Point
on the Ottawa, when it {92} halted, till the Canadian Pacific project
gave it new life. After failing to make ends meet for some years the
company went through repeated reorganizations in the early sixties.
The Bytown and Prescott, later the St Lawrence and Ottawa, built in
1854, was also a lumber road, promoted by interests connected with the
Ogdensburg Railway, whose terminus was opposite Prescott. It suffered
the same financial fate, and was sold to the English company which had
supplied the rails, at a total sacrifice of municipal and other
creditors' interests. Around the Long Sault rapids in the Ottawa there
was built in 1854 the thirteen-mile Carillon an