Fort Niagara, unlike any of the Canadian forts along that frontier, is a regular fortification, built of stone, on the land side, with breast works, and every necessary appendage.

It mounts between twenty and thirty heavy pieces of ordnance, and contains a furnace for heating shot.
The strait of Niagara is about 36 miles in length; and its shores, on both sides, were, more or less, the scenes of active warfare during the whole period of hostilities.

Lake Ontario, to which the strait leads, is in length, from west to east, 171, in breadth 50, and in circumference 467 miles.

The depth of water varies much, it being in some places three or four, in others fifty fathoms: towards the centre three hundred fathoms of line have, it is said, not found the bottom.

York harbour lies on the north side of Lake Ontario; is nearly circular, of about a mile and a half in diameter, and formed by a narrow peninsula extending to Gibraltar Point, upon which a blockhouse has been erected.