  The results of the WA97 collaboration for strange particle production at
mid-rapidity in Pb--Pb collisions at 158 GeV A/c at CERN display a strong
strangeness enhancement with system size at mid-rapidity which is dependent on
the strangeness of the particle concerned, and saturates at values of
participating nucleons greater than 120. These results are phenomenologically
described by the mixed canonical ensemble, with canonical (exact) strangeness
conservation involving all strange resonances, and grand canonical conservation
of charge and baryon number. A detailed quantitative analysis shows that the
data are well described by an equilibrium (gamma_S equivalent to 1) hadron gas.
