Kingston

Kingston, chief town of Frontenac county, Ontario, is situated at the head of Lake Ontario, and at the mouth of the Cataraqui Creek, 161 miles by rail ENE. of Toronto. It has a number of handsome public buildings, and is the seat of the Royal Military College of Canada (1876), of Queen's University (1841), with museums and an observatory, and of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (1854) and the Women's Medical College (1883) affiliated to it. Here also are a business-college and a collegiate and training institute for teachers. The city has, besides excellent railway facilities, good water-communication by the lake, the St Lawrence, and the Rideau Canal, which last connects it with Ottawa. It possesses a large, sheltered harbour, with an active trade, and strongly fortified; and, besides busy shipyards, has manufactories of locomotives and stationary engines, machinery, leather, boots and shoes, agricultural implements, wooden wares, &c. Grant Allen and George Romanes are both Kingston men. Kingston is the seat of an Anglican bishop and of a Roman Catholic archbishop. Its site was occupied by the old French fort of Frontenac. The town was the capital of Canada from 1841 to 1844. Pop. (1881) 14,091; (1891) 19,264.