GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

Lincoln Monument, Lincoln Park, Chicago

FEATURES OF CHICAGO.

Chicago is the world's greatest grain, lumber and cattle market. It attracts immigrants from everywhere, and all flourish in native luxuriance, although occasionally they are compelled to bow to the power of the law by the military arm when civil forces are exhausted. Everything seems to go on without much hindrance, and thus this wonderful city secures its rapid growth and completely cosmopolitan character. While proud of their amazing progress, the people seem generally so engrossed in pushing business enterprises and piling up fortunes that they havelittle time to think of much else. Yet somebody has had opportunity to plan the adornment of the city by a magnificent series of parks and boulevards encircling it. The broad expanse of prairie was low, level and treeless originally, but abundant trees have since been planted, and art has made little lakes and miniature hills, beautiful flower-gardens and abundant shrubbery, thus producing pleasure-grounds of rare attractions. Michigan Avenue and Drexel and Grand Boulevards, leading to the southern system of parks and Lake Shore Drive on the north side of Chicago River, are the finest residential streets. The huge Auditorium fronting on Michigan Avenue was erected at a cost of $3,500,000, includes a hotel and theatre, and is surmounted with a tower rising two hundred and seventy feet, giving a fine view over the city and lake. Out in front is the Lake Park, with railways beyond near the shore, and a fine bronze equestrian statue of General John A. Logan, who died in 1886 and is buried in the crypt beneath the monument. Michigan Avenue begins at Chicago River alongside the site of old Fort Dearborn, now obliterated, and it stretches far south, a tree-lined boulevard adorned by magnificent residences.

Chicago River, with its entrance protected by a wide-spreading breakwater, is the harbor of the city, and, like its railways, carries the trade. Tunnels conduct various streets under it, and a multitude of bridges go over it, all of them opening to let vesselspass. They are mostly swinging bridges, but some are ingenious constructions, which roll, and lift and fold, and in various curious ways open the channel for the shipping. Huge elevators line the river banks, with vessels alongside, into which streams of grain are poured, while multitudes of cars move in and out, under and around them, bringing the supply from the farm to the storage-bins. In the business section, as elsewhere, the streets are wide, thus accommodating the throngs who fill them, and there are fine city and national buildings, a new Post-office of large size and imposing architecture being in course of construction. The Chicago Public Library, completed in 1897, is a grand structure, costing $2,000,000, and having about three hundred thousand volumes. The University of Chicago, in the southern suburbs, is destined to become one of the leading institutions of learning in America. It began instruction in 1892, and now has some twenty-four hundred students, and endowments of $15,000,000, largely the gifts of John D. Rockefeller. The University grounds cover twenty-four acres, and when the plan is completed there will be over forty buildings. Its libraries contain three hundred and fifty thousand volumes. The great Yerkes Observatory, adjunct to this University, is at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, seventy miles distant, and has the largest refracting telescope in the world, with forty-inch lens and a tube seventy feet long. On the northern side of the city is theNewberry Library, with $3,000,000 endowment and two hundred thousand volumes, including admirable musical and medical collections, and the Crerar Library, with $2,000,000 endowment, principally for scientific works, is being established on the south side. Chicago's greatest industrial establishment is the Federal Steel Company, having enormous rolling-mills and foundries in various parts of the city, and also at Joliet on Desplaines River. Its South Chicago Rolling Mills occupy over three hundred acres. The manufacture of agricultural machinery is represented by two enormous establishments, the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company on the southwest side and the Deering Works in the northwestern district.

CHICAGO BUSINESS ENERGY.

As the elevators of Chicago represent its traffic in grain, and contain usually a large proportion of what is known as the "visible supply," so do the vast lumber-yards along Chicago River often store up an enormous product of the output from the "Great North Woods," covering much of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, and spreading across the Canadian border. The third great branch of traffic is represented by the Union Stock Yards in the southwestern suburbs. These yards in a year will handle eight millions of hogs, four millions of cattle, four millions of sheep and a hundred thousand horses, over two-thirds of the hogs and cattle being killed in the yardsand sent away in the form of meat, and the whole annual traffic being valued at $250,000,000. The yards cover three hundred acres, and with the packing-houses employ twenty-five thousand men, and they have twenty miles of water-troughs and twenty-five miles of feeding-troughs, and are served by two hundred and fifty miles of railway-tracks. The hog is a potential factor in American economy, being regarded as the most compact form in which the corn crop of the country can be transported to market. The corn on the farm is fed to the hog, and the animal is sent to Chicago as a package provided by nature for its economical utilization. The Union Stock Yards make a complete town, with its own banks, hotels, Board of Trade, Post-office, town-hall, newspaper and special Fire Department. The extensive enclosure is entered by a modest, gray sandstone turreted gateway, surmounted by a carved bull's head, emblematic of its uses. The Horse Market is a large pavilion, seating four thousand people. From this vast emporium, with its enormous packing-houses, are sent away the meat supplies that go all over the world, the product being carried out in long trains of canned goods and refrigerator cars, the most ingenious methods of "cold storage" being invented for and used in this widely extended industry.

The active traffic of the grain and provision trades of Chicago is conducted in the building of the Board of Trade, a tall and imposing structure at the headof La Salle Street, which makes a fitting close to the view along that grand highway. It is one of the most elaborate architectural ornaments of the city, and its surmounting tower rises three hundred and twenty-two feet from the pavement. The fame of this grand speculative arena is world-wide, and the animated and at times most exciting business done within marks the nervous beating of the pulse of this metropolis of food products. The interior is a magnificent hall, lighted by high-reaching windows and surmounted by a central skylight elevated nearly a hundred feet above the floor. Impressive columns adorn the sides, and the elaborate frescoes above are in keeping with its artistic decoration. Upon the spacious floor, between nine and one o'clock, assemble the wheat and corn, and pork, lard, cattle and railway kings in a typical scene of concentrated and boiling energy feeding the furnace in which Chicago's high-pressure business enterprise glows and roars. These speculative gladiators have their respective "pits" or amphitheatres upon the floor, so that they gather in huge groups, around which hundreds run and jostle, the scene from the overlooking gallery, as the crowds sway and squirm, and with their calls and shouting make a deafening uproar, being a veritable Bedlam. Each "pit" deals in a specific article, while in another space are detachments of telegraph operators working with nimble fingers to send instant reports of the doings and prices to the anxious outerworld. High up on the side of the grand hall, in full view of all, are hung large dials, whose moving hands keep momentary record of the changes in prices made by the noisy and excited throngs in the "pits," thus giving notice of the ruling figures for the next month's "options" on wheat, corn and "short-ribs." There are tables for samples, and large blackboards bearing the figures of market quotations elsewhere. This Chicago Board of Trade has been the scene of some of the wildest speculative excitements in the country, as its shouting and almost frenzied groups of traders in the "pits" may make or break a "corner," and here in fitful fever concentrates the business energy of the great Metropolis of the Lakes.

PULLMAN AND THE SLEEPING-CAR.

Another Chicago specialty of wide fame is the railway sleeping-car, brought to its present high stage of development by one of the most prominent Chicagoans, the late George M. Pullman. The earliest American sleeping-car was devised by Theodore T. Woodruff, who constructed a small working model in 1854 at Watertown, New York, and subsequently building his car, first ran it on the New York Central Railroad in October, 1856, charging fifty cents for a berth. George M. Pullman was originally a cabinet-maker in New York State, and moved when a young man to Chicago. His first fame in that city, as already stated, came from theingenious methods he devised, when the grade of the town was elevated to secure better drainage, for raising the buildings by putting hundreds of jackscrews under them, trade continuing uninterrupted during the process. Pullman, subsequently to that time, travelled occasionally between Chicago and Buffalo, and one night got into Woodruff's car. He was stretched out upon the vibrating couch for some two hours, but could not sleep, and his eyes being widely open, and the sight wandering all about the car, he struck upon a new idea. When he left the car he had determined to develop from his brief experience a plan destined to expand into a complete home upon wheels for the traveller, either awake or sleeping. In 1859 he turned two ordinary railway coaches into sleeping-cars and placed them upon night trains between Chicago and St. Louis, charging fifty cents per berth, his first night's receipts being two dollars. He ran these experimental coaches about five years before he felt able to carry out his ideal plan, and he then occupied fully a year in constructing his model sleeping-car, the "Pioneer," at Chicago, at a cost of $18,000. But when completed the car was so heavy, wide and high that no railway could undertake running it, as it necessitated cutting off station platforms and elevating the tops of bridges before it could pass by. Thus he had a white elephant on his hands for a time. In April, 1865, President Lincoln's assassination shocked the country, and the funeral, with itsescort of mourning statesmen, was progressing from Washington to Chicago, on the way to the grave at Springfield. The nation watched its progress, and the railways transporting thecortégewere doing their best. The manager of the road from Chicago to Springfield used the "Pioneer" in the funeral train, taking several days to prepare for it by sending out gangs of men to cut off the station platforms and alter the bridges. Pullman's dream was realized; his "coach of the future," with its escort of statesmen, carried the dead President to his grave and became noted throughout the land. A few weeks later, General Grant, fresh from the conquest of the Rebellion, had a triumphal progress from the camp to his home in Illinois. Five days were spent in clearing the railway between Detroit and Galena, where he lived, and the "Pioneer" carried Grant over that line.

These successes made Pullman's fortune, and the business of his company grew rapidly afterwards, it being now an enormous concern with $70,000,000 capital, controlling practically all the sleeping-cars of this country and many abroad. The main works are at the Chicago suburb of Pullman, ten miles south of the centre of the city, where there are about twelve thousand population, most of the people being connected with the works, which are an extensive general car-building establishment. Pullman was built as a model town, with every improvement calculated to add to the comfort and health of the working-people,being also provided with its own library, theatre, and a tasteful arcade, in which are various shops. It was at Pullman in 1894 that the great strike took place which ultimately involved a large portion of the railways of the country, causing much rioting and bloodshed, and finally requiring the intervention of the Federal troops to maintain the peace. After a protracted period of turmoil, the strike failed.

THE CORN CROP.

Chicago is theentrepôtfor the great prairie region spreading from the Alleghenies westward beyond the Mississippi. Here grows the grain making the wealth of the land, and feeding the cattle, hogs and sheep that are poured so liberally into the Union Stock Yards of the Lake City. Upon the crops of this vast prairie land depends the prosperity of the country. Wall Street in New York and the Chicago Board of Trade are the market barometers of this prosperity, for the prairie farmer, as he may be rich and able to spend money, or poor so that he cannot even pay his debts, controls the financial outlook in America. The traveller, as he glides upon this universal prairie land, east, south and west of Chicago, viewing its limitless fertility seen far away in every direction over the monotonous level, as if looking across an ocean, cannot help recalling Wordsworth's pleasant lines:

"The streams with softest sound are flowing,The grass you almost hear it growing,You hear it now, if e'er you can."

"The streams with softest sound are flowing,

The grass you almost hear it growing,

You hear it now, if e'er you can."

Then, as the crops ripen and are garnered, and the wealth of the prairie is turned into food for the world, there comes with the advancing autumn the ripening of the greatest crop of America, and the mainstay of the country, the Indian corn. It is wonderful to think that the first corn crop of the United States planted by white men at Jamestown, Virginia, on a field of forty acres in 1608, has grown to an annual yield approximating twenty-three hundred million bushels. This prolific crop is the banner product of the great prairie, and Whittier in his "Corn Song" has recorded its glories:

"Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard!Heap high the golden corn!No richer gift has autumn pouredFrom out the lavish horn!"Let other lands, exulting, gleanThe apple from the pine,The orange from its glossy green,The cluster from the vine;"We better love the hardy giftOur rugged vales bestow,To cheer us when the storm shall driftOur harvest fields with snow."Through vales of grass and meads of flowers,Our plows their furrows made,While on the hills, the sun and showersOf changeful April played."We dropped the seed o'er hill and plainBeneath the sun of May,And frightened from our sprouting grainThe robber crows away."All through the long bright days of JuneIts leaves grew green and fair,And waved in hot midsummer's noonIts soft and yellow hair."And now, with autumn's moonlit eves,Its harvest time has come,We pluck away the frosted leaves,And bear the treasure home."There, richer than the fabled giftApollo showered of old,Fair hands the broken grain shall sift,And knead its meal of gold."Let vapid idlers loll in silkAround their costly board;Give us the bowl of samp and milkBy homespun beauty poured!"Where'er the wide old kitchen hearthSends up its smoky curls,Who will not thank the kindly earth,And bless our farmer girls!"Let earth withhold her goodly root,Let mildew blight the rye,Give to the worm the orchard's fruit,The wheat-field to the fly;"But let the good old corn adornThe hills our fathers trod;Still let us for his golden cornSend up our thanks to God!"

"Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard!Heap high the golden corn!No richer gift has autumn pouredFrom out the lavish horn!

"Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard!

Heap high the golden corn!

No richer gift has autumn poured

From out the lavish horn!

"Let other lands, exulting, gleanThe apple from the pine,The orange from its glossy green,The cluster from the vine;

"Let other lands, exulting, glean

The apple from the pine,

The orange from its glossy green,

The cluster from the vine;

"We better love the hardy giftOur rugged vales bestow,To cheer us when the storm shall driftOur harvest fields with snow.

"We better love the hardy gift

Our rugged vales bestow,

To cheer us when the storm shall drift

Our harvest fields with snow.

"Through vales of grass and meads of flowers,Our plows their furrows made,While on the hills, the sun and showersOf changeful April played.

"Through vales of grass and meads of flowers,

Our plows their furrows made,

While on the hills, the sun and showers

Of changeful April played.

"We dropped the seed o'er hill and plainBeneath the sun of May,And frightened from our sprouting grainThe robber crows away.

"We dropped the seed o'er hill and plain

Beneath the sun of May,

And frightened from our sprouting grain

The robber crows away.

"All through the long bright days of JuneIts leaves grew green and fair,And waved in hot midsummer's noonIts soft and yellow hair.

"All through the long bright days of June

Its leaves grew green and fair,

And waved in hot midsummer's noon

Its soft and yellow hair.

"And now, with autumn's moonlit eves,Its harvest time has come,We pluck away the frosted leaves,And bear the treasure home.

"And now, with autumn's moonlit eves,

Its harvest time has come,

We pluck away the frosted leaves,

And bear the treasure home.

"There, richer than the fabled giftApollo showered of old,Fair hands the broken grain shall sift,And knead its meal of gold.

"There, richer than the fabled gift

Apollo showered of old,

Fair hands the broken grain shall sift,

And knead its meal of gold.

"Let vapid idlers loll in silkAround their costly board;Give us the bowl of samp and milkBy homespun beauty poured!

"Let vapid idlers loll in silk

Around their costly board;

Give us the bowl of samp and milk

By homespun beauty poured!

"Where'er the wide old kitchen hearthSends up its smoky curls,Who will not thank the kindly earth,And bless our farmer girls!

"Where'er the wide old kitchen hearth

Sends up its smoky curls,

Who will not thank the kindly earth,

And bless our farmer girls!

"Let earth withhold her goodly root,Let mildew blight the rye,Give to the worm the orchard's fruit,The wheat-field to the fly;

"Let earth withhold her goodly root,

Let mildew blight the rye,

Give to the worm the orchard's fruit,

The wheat-field to the fly;

"But let the good old corn adornThe hills our fathers trod;Still let us for his golden cornSend up our thanks to God!"

"But let the good old corn adorn

The hills our fathers trod;

Still let us for his golden corn

Send up our thanks to God!"

VII.

GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT NORTHWEST.

The Great Lakes—Sieur de La Salle—Lake St. Clair—Lake Huron—Detroit—Ann Arbor—Mackinac Island—Sault Sainte Marie—Lake Superior—Lake Nepigon—Thunder Bay—Port Arthur—Kakabika Falls—The Pictured Rocks—Marquette—Keweenaw—Iron and Copper—Houghton—Lake Gogebic—Superior City—Duluth—Messabi and Vermillion Ranges—Green Bay—Wisconsin—Milwaukee—Waukesha—Madison—Rock Island—Davenport—Moline Rapids—Dubuque—Iowa—Black Hawk—Minnesota—La Crosse—Lake Pepin—Falls of St. Anthony—St. Paul—Minneapolis—Fort Snelling—Flour and Lumber—Lake Minnetonka—Minnehaha Falls—Hiawatha and Minnehaha—Source of the Mississippi—Itasca Lake—Minnesota River—Red River of the North—Ancient Lake Agassiz—Sioux Falls—Fargo—Great Wheat Farms—Manitoba—Rat Portage—Keewatin—Winnipeg—Hudson Bay Company—Dakota—Bismarck—The Bad Lands—Yellowstone River—Montana—Big Horn River—Custer Massacre—Livingston—Cinnabar Mountain—Yellowstone National Park—Mammoth Hot Springs—Norris Geyser Basin—Firehole River—Lower, Middle and Upper Geyser Basins—Yellowstone Lake and Falls—The Grand Canyon—Two-Ocean Pond—Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way.

THE GREAT LAKES.

René Robert Cavelier, the Sieur de La Salle, was the chief French pilgrim and adventurer in the seventeenth century who explored the Great Lakes and valley of the Mississippi, and secured for his country the vast empire of Louisiana, stretchingfrom Canada to the Gulf. His explorations were made in 1669 and again in 1678, and like all the discoverers of that early time he was hunting for the water way thought to lead to the South Sea and provide a route to China. The historian Parkman describes La Salle as one of the most remarkable explorers whose names live in history; the hero of a fixed idea and determined purpose; an untiring pilgrim pushing onward towards the goal he was never to attain; the pioneer who guided America to the possession of her richest heritage. Throughout the northwest his memory is preserved in the names of rivers, towns, and otherwise, and his maps and narratives gave the earliest geography of the Lakes and the vast and prolific region obtained from France in the Louisiana cession.

The Great Lakes on the northern border of the United States are the largest bodies of fresh water on the globe. They carry an enormous commerce, nearly a hundred thousand men being employed by the fleet of lake vessels, which approximates two millions tonnage. At the head of Lake Erie the waters of Detroit River pour in, draining the upper lakes, this stream, about twenty-five miles long, flowing from Lake St. Clair and broadening from a half-mile to four miles width at its mouth. Lake St. Clair is elevated five hundred and thirty feet, but is small, being about twenty-five miles in diameter, and shallow, only about twenty feet deep. The navigationof its shallows is intricate, and is aided by a long canal through the shoals at the upper end, where the St. Clair River discharges, a strait about forty miles long, flowing south from Lake Huron. This great lake is at five hundred and eighty feet elevation, and in places seventeen hundred feet deep, covering twenty-four thousand square miles, and containing many islands. At its northern end, Lakes Superior and Michigan join it by various straits and water ways beyond Mackinac Island. Westward of Lakes Ontario and Erie, and between them and Lake Huron, a long peninsula of the Dominion of Canada projects southward into the United States, terminating opposite Detroit. Similarly, to the westward of Lake Huron, and between it and Lake Michigan, the State of Michigan has its lower peninsula projecting upward to Canada. The Canadian projection, which is part of Ontario Province, is unfortunately located, being almost surrounded by these expansive lakes, having bleak, cold winds sweeping across them and seriously impeding its agriculture. The surface has little charm of scenery and the population is sparse. The trunk railways, however, find this an almost direct route from Western New York to Detroit and Chicago, and various roads traverse it, coming out on the Detroit River and the swift-flowing St. Clair River, which are crossed both by car-ferry and tunnel. At the outlet of Lake Huron, St. Clair River is less than a thousand feet wide between Point Edwardand Fort Gratiot, and here and at Ports Sarnia and Huron the low and level shores are lined with docks, elevators and other accessories of commerce. This river brings vast amounts of sand down out of Lake Huron with its swift current, which are deposited on the St. Clair Flats beyond its mouth, keeping that lake shallow, and requiring the long ship canal to maintain navigation. Below Lake St. Clair, the wider Detroit River presents many fine bits of scenery, while the city of Detroit spreads for several miles along the northwestern bank, and has Windsor opposite, on the Canadian shore. Pretty islands dot the broadening stream below Detroit, and the varying width, with the bluffs on the Canadian side, and the meadows, fields and forests of Michigan, give lovely views.

DETROIT AND MACKINAC.

Detroit means "the strait," and the original Indian names for the river mean "the place of the turned channel." The early visitors who reached it by boat at night or in dark weather, and were inattentive to the involved currents, always remarked, as the Indians did before them, that owing to these extraordinary involutions of the waters, when the sun appeared again it always seemed to rise in the wrong place. The French under La Salle were the first Europeans who passed through the river, and in 1701 the Sieur de la Mothe Cadillac, who received grants from Louis XIV., came and founded Fort Pontchartrainthere, naming it after the French Minister of Marine, around which a settlement afterwards grew, to which the French sent colonists at intervals. The British got possession in 1760, and it successfully resisted the conspiracy and attacks of the Ojibway Indian chief Pontiac for over a year, the garrison narrowly escaping massacre. The United States, after the Revolution, sent out General St. Clair as Governor, and his name was given the lake to the northward. Detroit was a frontier post in the War of 1812, being alternately held by British and Americans. In 1824 it had about fifteen hundred people and became a city. It now has three hundred and fifty thousand population, and its commercial importance may be estimated from the fact that the whole enormous traffic of the Lakes passes in front of the city during the seven months that navigation is open, the procession of craft often reaching sixty thousand vessels in the season. Detroit also has extensive and varied manufactures. It has a gradually rising surface and broad and well-paved streets on a rectangular plan, with several avenues radiating from a centre, like the spokes of a wheel. The central square is the Campus Martius, an expansion, about a half-mile from the river, of Woodward Avenue, the chief street. Here is an elaborate City Hall, the principal public building, having in front a magnificent Soldiers' Monument. The suburbs are attractive, and there are various pleasant parks and rural cemeteries, theleading Park of Belle Isle, covering seven hundred acres, being to the northeastward, with a good view over Lake St. Clair. Fort Wayne, the elaborate defensive work of Detroit, is on the river just below the city, and has a small garrison of regular troops. It is yet incomplete, and is designed to be the most extensive fortification on the northern frontier, commanding the important passage between Lakes Huron and Erie and the railway routes east and west.

The peninsula of Michigan was originally covered with the finest forests, so that lumbering has always been a leading industry of the people. The greater portion of its pine woods, however, has been cut off, so that that branch is declining; but its ample supply of hard woods has made the State a great manufacturer of furniture, which is shipped all over the country. Thirty-eight miles west of Detroit, on the Huron River, is the city of Ann Arbor, with a population of fifteen thousand. Here are the extensive buildings of the University of Michigan, the leading educational establishment of the northwest, attended by over three thousand students, of whom a large number are young women. It is richly endowed, and has departments of law and medicine, as well as of literature and science, a large library and an observatory. The State makes a liberal annual contribution for its support, raised by taxation, it being governed by eight regents elected by the people. At the northern extremity of the Michigan Peninsula is theStrait of Mackinac, through which Lake Michigan discharges into Lake Huron. This water way is about four miles wide. In the strait is Mackinac Island, about nine miles in circumference, which was early held by the French on account of its strategic importance, but, being taken by the English in 1760, was captured by Pontiac when he organized the Indian revolt against the British in 1763, and all its inhabitants massacred. It is now a military post and reservation of the United States. This rocky and wooded island contains much picturesque scenery, and is a favorite summer resort, its weird legends, fresh breezes, good fishing and clear waters being the attraction. It was an early post of the northwestern fur-traders, and here was founded one of the frontier trading-stations of the Astor Fur Company in the early nineteenth century by John Jacob Astor of New York, the building in the little village being still known as the Astor House.

LAKE SUPERIOR.

To the northward of Mackinac, Lake Superior discharges into Lake Huron through the Sault Sainte Marie Strait, the "Leap of St. Mary." This strait of St. Mary is a winding and most beautiful stream, sixty-two miles long, being a succession of expansions into lakes and contractions into rivers, dotted with pretty islands and having some villages on the banks. The chief attraction is the Sault, or "Leap,"which is a rapid of about eighteen feet descent, the navigation being maintained through capacious modern systems of locks and ship canals provided by both the United States and Canada. To the westward is the great Lake Superior, the largest fresh-water lake on the globe, three hundred and sixty miles long and covering thirty-two thousand square miles, with a coast-line of about fifteen hundred miles. It is elevated about six hundred feet above the ocean level, and has a depth averaging one thousand feet. Nearly two hundred rivers and creeks flow into it, draining a region of a hundred thousand square miles. There are a few islands in the eastern and western portions, but all the centre of the lake is a vast unbroken sheet of water, and generally of a low temperature, the deeper waters being only 39° in summer. The early French missionaries, who were the first explorers, told their interesting story of Lake Superior in Paris in 1636, and in their published account speak of its coasts as resembling a bended bow, of which the north shore makes the arc of the bow, the south shore the chord, and the great Keweenaw Point, projecting far from the southern shore, represents the arrow. Superior has generally a rock-bound coast, displaying impressive beauties of scenery, particularly on the northern shore, where the beetling crags and cliffs are projected boldly into the lake along the water's edge. This northern coast is also much indented by deepbays, bordered by precipitous cliffs, back of which rise the dark and dreary Laurentian Mountains. There are also rocky islands scattered near this portion of the coast, some presenting vast castellated walls of basalt and others peaks of granite, elevated a thousand to thirteen hundred feet above the lake. Nowhere upon the inland waters of North America is there grander scenery.

The most considerable affluent of Lake Superior upon its northern coast is the Nepigon River, coming grandly down cascades and rapids, bringing the waters of Lake Nepigon, an elliptical lake among the mountains to the northward covering about four thousand square miles, bounded by high cliffs, and elevated over eight hundred feet. It is studded with islands, has very deep waters, and receives various streams from the remote northern wilderness. Upon the northwestern shore of Lake Superior are gigantic cliffs, surrounding Thunder Bay, a deep indentation divided from Black Bay by the great projecting promontory of Thunder Cape, rising nearly fourteen hundred feet in grand columns of basalt, the summit containing the crater of an extinct volcano. Across from it is McKay Mountain, another basaltic Gibraltar, rising twelve hundred feet from the almost level plain bordering the bay. Pic Island is between them, guarding the entrance. The pretty Kaministiquia River flows through rich prairie lands down to Thunder Bay, and here is the chief Canadian townon the lake, Port Arthur. Thirty miles up this river is the famous Kakabika Falls, where the rocks are cleft so that the stream tumbles into a chasm one hundred and thirty feet deep, and then boils along with rapid current for nearly a half-mile through the fissure, the sides towering perpendicularly, and in some places even overhanging their bases. Upon this river was for many years the well-known Hudson Bay Company's fur-trading station of Fort William, which now has grain elevators, and is a suburb of the spreading settlement of Port Arthur. This was the beginning of the great portage from Lake Superior over to the Hudson Bay waters at Fort Garry, on the Red River in Manitoba, now Winnipeg, the portage being the present route of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

SAULT SAINTE MARIE TO DULUTH.

The southern shore of Lake Superior is mostly composed of lowlands, covered with sand, glacial deposits and clays, which came from the lake during a former stage of much higher water, when it extended many miles south of the present boundary. These lands, while not well adapted to agriculture, contain rich deposits of copper, iron and other metals and valuable red sandstones. Around the rapids and canals at the outlet has gradually grown the town of Sault Sainte Marie, familiarly known as the "Soo," having ten thousand people, and developing importantmanufactures from the admirable water-power of the rapids, which is also utilized for electrical purposes. An international bridge brings a branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway over from Canada, on its way to Minneapolis and St. Paul, with connections southward to Chicago, and there is also the military post of Fort Brady. Stately processions of vessels constantly move through the canals, being locked up or down when the navigation season is open, and making this a very animated place, over fifteen thousand ships passing in the seven months when the canals are free from ice. The tonnage is the greatest using any system of canals in the world, far exceeding Suez, and the recent improvements enable vessels of twenty-one feet draft to go through the new locks. Both Governments have expended millions upon these important public works, which are chiefly employed for the transport of grain, flour, coal, iron-ores and copper. The favorite sports at the "Soo" are catching white fish and "shooting the rapids" in canoes guided by the Indians, who are very skillful.

About one hundred miles westward from the "Soo," on the southern lake shore, there rise cliffs of the red and other sandstones formed by the edges of nearly horizontal strata coming out at the border of the lake. These are the noted Pictured Rocks, rising three hundred feet, extending for a distance of about five miles, and worn by frost and storm into fantastic and romantic forms, displaying vivid hues—red, blue,yellow, green, brown and gray—as they have been stained by the oozing waters carrying the pigments. At intervals, cascades fall over the rocks. One cliff, called the Sail Rock, is like a sloop in full sail, and there are various castles and chapels, and an elaborate Grand Portal. In the country around is laid much of the scene ofHiawatha, and at the little lake port of Munising, nearby, was the site of the wigwam of the old woman, Nokomis,

"On the shores of Gitchee Gumee,Of the shining Big-Sea-Water."

"On the shores of Gitchee Gumee,

Of the shining Big-Sea-Water."

To the westward is the region of iron-ores, and here is Marquette, named for the great Jesuit missionary Father Marquette, who was the first founder of mission settlements in this region, and died in 1675 near the mouth of Marquette River. This town of fifteen thousand people is on Iron Bay, and is the chief port of the Marquette, Menominee and Ishpeming mines. Farther to the westward the great Keweenaw Peninsula projects, the name meaning in the Indian dialect the "canoe portage." At its base, the Portage Lake almost separates it from the mainland, and a short portage to the westward formerly carried the canoes over the narrow isthmus. A canal now enables the lake shipping to pass through without making the long detour around the outer end of the peninsula. Upon this rocky peninsula are the great copper-mines of Michigan, including theQuincy, Tamarack, Osceola, Franklin, Atlantic, and the Calumet and Hecla. The latter is the world's leading Copper Company, making over $4,000,000 estimated annual profit, employing five thousand men, and having the deepest shaft in existence, the Red Jacket, which has been sunk forty-nine hundred feet. Houghton, on the southern shore of Portage Lake, is the leading town of the copper district. To the southwestward and in the western part of the Upper Michigan Peninsula is Lake Gogebic, elevated thirteen hundred feet, in another prolific iron-ore district, the Gogebic range, which produces Bessemer ores, and has its shipping port across the Wisconsin boundary at Ashland, another busy town of fifteen thousand people at the head of Chequamegon Bay. Out in front are the Apostle Islands, a picturesque group, and to the westward the head of Lake Superior gradually narrows in the Fond du Lac, or end of the lake, where are situated its leading ports, Superior City in Wisconsin and Duluth in Minnesota.

Here in the seventeenth century came the early French, and in 1680 a trading-post was established by Daniel du Lhut, afterwards becoming a Hudson Bay Company Station. The mouth of St. Louis River and its bay were naturally recognized as important points for trade, and when the Northern Pacific Railway was projected Superior City got its start. The first railroad scheme failed, the panic of1857 came, and the railway project was abandoned until after the Civil War; and then, when it was renewed, the terminus was located over on the other side of the river, the place being named Duluth, after the French trader. While there has been great rivalry between them, and Duluth has outstripped Superior, yet the latter has an extensive trade and thirty thousand people. Duluth, the "Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas," as it has been ambitiously called, was originally projected on Minnesota Point, a scythe-shaped natural breakwater running out seven miles into the lake, which protects the harbor, but the town was subsequently built farther in. There were about seventy white people in the neighborhood in 1860, and in 1869 its present site was a forest, while the railroad, which had many set-backs, had only brought about three thousand people there in 1885. The completion of other railway connections in various directions, the discovery of iron deposits, and the recognition of its advantageous position for traffic, subsequently gave Duluth rapid growth, so that it now has eighty thousand people, and is the greatest port on the lake. It is finely situated, the harbor being spacious and lined with docks and warehouses, and it has many substantial buildings. Back of the city a terrace rises some four hundred feet, an old shore line of Lake Superior when the water was at much higher level, and here is the Boulevard Drive, giving splendid views overthe town and lake. The vast extent of wheat lands to the westward and the prolific iron-ore district to the northward give Duluth an enormous trade. Its railways lead up to the Messabi and Vermillion ranges, now the greatest producers of Lake Superior iron-ores, the red hematite, most of the output being controlled by John D. Rockefeller and his associates. These mines yield the richest ores in the world, and have made some of the greatest fortunes in Duluth. Yet they were not discovered until 1891, and then the lands where they are generally went begging, because nobody would give the government price for them, $1.25 per acre. One forty-acre tract, then abandoned by the man who took it up because he did not think the pine wood on it was enough to warrant paying $50 for it, is now the Mountain Iron Mine, netting Mr. Rockefeller $375,000 annual profit, and his railroad bringing the ores out gets more than that sum for freights.

THE CITY OF MILWAUKEE.

The early French traders and explorers who came to the upper lakes naturally ascended their affluents, and in this way La Salle, Joliet, Hennepin and others crossed the portages beyond Lake Michigan to the tributaries of the Mississippi. They came to Green Bay on the west side of Lake Michigan, ascended the Fox River and crossed over to the Wisconsin River. Southward from the Upper Michigan Peninsulaand westward of the lower peninsula of that State spreads the broad expanse of Lake Michigan, stretching from Mackinac and Green Bay down to Chicago. Its western shore is the State of Wisconsin, extending northward to Lake Superior. When the French explorers came along and floated down its chief river, an affluent of the Mississippi, the latter making the western boundary of the State, they found the Indian name of the stream to be a word which, according to the pronunciation, they spelled in their early narratives "Ouisconsing" and "Misconsin," and it finally came out in the present form of Wisconsin, thus naming the State. The original meaning was the "wild, rushing red water," from the hue given by the pine and tamarack forests. La Salle coasted in his canoe all along the western shore of Lake Michigan, from Green Bay down to Chicago, and crossed over to the Mississippi. The traders established various settlements on that shore which have grown into active cities, and the principal one, eighty-five miles north of Chicago, is Milwaukee, its name derived from the Indian Mannawahkie, meaning the "good land." A broad harbor, indented several miles from the lake, was the nucleus of the city, at the mouth of Milwaukee River, which receives two tributaries within the town, and thus adds to the facilities for dockage, while extensive breakwaters protect the harbor entrance from lake storms.

Milwaukee has three hundred and fifty thousandpeople, and is the growth mainly of the latter half of the nineteenth century. It is finely located, with undulating surface, the streets lined with trees, and the splendid development of the residential section making it almost like an extensive park, the foliage and garden spaces are so extensive and attractive. Its population is largely German, and its breweries are famous, exporting their product all over the country. It has a grand Federal building, costing nearly $2,000,000, a Romanesque structure in granite, an elaborate Court-house of brown sandstone, a spacious City Hall, a magnificent Public Library and Museum, and many attractive churches and other edifices. Juneau Park, on a bluff overlooking the lake, commemorates the first settler, Solomon Juneau, and contains his statue. Here, in compliment to the large Scandinavian population of Wisconsin, is also a statue of Leif Ericsen, who is said to have been in command of the first detachment of Norsemen who landed in New England in the eleventh century. The Forest Home Cemetery at the southwestern verge of the city is one of the most beautiful in the country. Milwaukee is familiarly called the "Cream City" from the light-colored brick made in the neighborhood, which so largely enter into the construction of its buildings. It has extensive grain elevators and flour mills and large manufacturing industries. To the westward, in a park of four hundred acres, is the National Soldiers' Home, with accommodation fortwenty-four hundred. Its Sheridan Drive along the lake shore southward is gradually extending, the intention being to connect with the Sheridan Boulevard constructed northward from Chicago. The lion of the city, however, is the great Pabst Brewery, covering thirty-four acres and producing eight hundred thousand barrels of beer a year. Twenty miles inland to the westward is a favorite resort of the Milwaukeans, the noted Bethesda Spring of Waukesha, whose waters they find it beneficial to take copiously, large quantities being also exported throughout America and Europe for their efficacy in diabetes and Bright's disease.

The capital of Wisconsin is the city of Madison, seventy-five miles west of Milwaukee, built on the isthmus between Lakes Mendota and Monona, thus giving it an admirable position. It has about twenty thousand people, and the lake attractions make it a popular summer resort. The State Capitol is a handsome building in a spacious park, one of the wings being occupied by the Wisconsin Historical Society, with a library of two hundred thousand volumes, an art gallery and museum. The great structure of Madison is the University of Wisconsin, the buildings in a commanding position on University Hill overlooking the charming Lake Mendota. There are seventeen hundred students, and its Washburn Observatory, one of the best in America, has wide fame.

ASCENDING THE MISSISSIPPI.

Westward from Lake Michigan all the railroads are laid across the prairie landen routeto various cities on the Mississippi River, several of them having St. Paul and Minneapolis for their objective points, although some go by quite roundabout ways. The great "Father of Waters" comes from Northern Minnesota, flows over the Falls of St. Anthony at Minneapolis, and is a river of much scenic attractiveness down to Dubuque and Rock Island, its width being usually about three thousand feet, excepting at the bends, which are wider, the picturesque bluffs enclosing the valley sometimes rising six hundred feet high. The railways leading to it traverse the monotonous level of prairie in Illinois and Wisconsin, excepting where a stream may make a gorge, and the face of the country is everywhere almost the same. The Moline Rapids in the Mississippi above Rock Island afford good water-power, and here the Government, owning the island, has established a large arsenal, which is the base for all the western army supplies. The admirable location has made cities on either bank, Rock Island in Illinois and Davenport in Iowa, both being commercial and manufacturing centres, and the latter city having the larger population. The Mississippi flows through a rather wide valley, with pleasant shores, having villas dotted on their slopes. The Moline Rapids,which are said to have a water-power rivalling the aggregate of all the cataracts in New England, descend twenty-two feet in a distance of fourteen miles. Above them, the river flows between Illinois and Iowa, and various flourishing towns are passed, the largest being Dubuque, with fifty thousand people, the chief industrial city of Iowa, and a centre of the lead and zinc manufacture of the Galena district. This was the first settlement made by white men in Iowa, the city being named for Julien Dubuque, a French trader, who came in 1788 with a small party to work the lead-mines. Iowa is known as the "Hawkeye State," and its name is of Dakotan Indian derivation, meaning "drowsy," which, however, is hardly the proper basis for naming such a wide-awake Commonwealth. Opposite Dubuque is the northern boundary of Illinois, and above, the Mississippi separates Iowa from Wisconsin.

The Mississippi bordering bluffs now rise much higher and become more picturesque, Eagle Point, near Dubuque, being elevated three hundred feet. Prairie du Chien, just above the mouth of Wisconsin River, was one of the earliest French military posts. This region was the scene of the "Black Hawk War," that chief of the Sacs battling to get back certain lands which in 1832 had been ceded by the Sac and Fox Indians to the United States. He was finally defeated back of the western river shore, the boundary between Iowa and Minnesota being nearby.Minnesota is the "North Star State," and its Indian name, taken from the river, flowing into the Mississippi above St. Paul, means the "cloudy water." The river scenery becomes more and more picturesque as the Mississippi is ascended, the bluffs rising to higher elevations. La Crosse is a great lumber manufacturing town, drawing its timber from both Minnesota and Wisconsin. Above, where islands dot the channel, is perhaps the most beautiful section of the river. Trempealeau Island, five hundred feet high, commands a magnificent view, and the Black River flows in through a splendid gorge. Winona is a prominent grain-shipping town, and at Wabasha the river expands into the beautiful Lake Pepin, thirty miles long and from three to five miles wide, with attractive shores and many popular resorts. Over the lake rise the bold round headland of Point No Point on one side and the Maiden Rock on the other. St. Croix River flows in above on the eastern bank, making an enlargement known as St. Croix Lake, and the upper Mississippi is now wholly within Minnesota, having here at the head of navigation the famous "Twin Cities" of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY

Father Hennepin was the first white man who penetrated the wilds of Minnesota, and in 1680 he discovered the great falls of the Mississippi River,to which he gave the name of his patron saint, Anthony of Padua. The river just below the falls naturally attracted the attention of the French adventurers who came to trade with the Sioux, Chippewas and Dakotas, and the first white man who tarried and built a house here was a Canadian voyageur, who came in 1838. In 1841 a French priest established the Roman Catholic mission of St. Paul on the bank of the river, and thus the settlement was named. The admirable water-power of the falls, which, with their two miles of rapids, descend seventy-eight feet, afterwards attracted the attention of millers, lumbermen and other manufacturers, and this made the settlement of Minneapolis, ten miles westward and farther up the river, which began in 1849, the name meaning the "city of the waters." St. Paul grew with rapidity, being encouraged both by steamboat and afterwards by railway traffic; but Minneapolis, though started later, subsequently outstripped it. The two places, rivals yet friends, have extended towards each other, so as to almost form one large city, and they now have over four hundred thousand inhabitants. These "Twin Cities" are running a rapid race in prosperity, each independently of the other. St. Paul is rather more of a trading city, while Minneapolis is an emporium of sawmills and the greatest flour-mills in the world. Both are admirably located upon the bluffs rising above the Mississippi. St. Paul is situated upon aseries of ornamental semicircular terraces that are very attractive, though in some portions rather circumscribed. Minneapolis is built on a more extensive plan upon an esplanade overlooking the falls, and extending to an island in midstream, and also over upon the opposite northern side of the river. The Falls of St. Anthony is the most powerful waterfall in the United States wholly applied to manufacturing purposes. The entire current of the Mississippi comes down the rapids and over the falls, the latter having a descent of about fifty feet. It is protected by a wall built by the Government across the river, to prevent the wearing away of the sandstone formation, there having been serious inroads made, while the surface is covered with an apron of planks over which the water runs, with sluiceways alongside to shoot logs down. However much Father Hennepin may have admired the beauties of this great cataract, there is no longer anything picturesque about the Falls of St. Anthony. Logs jam the upper river, where the booms catch them for the sawmills, and subterranean channels conduct the water in various directions to the mills, and discharge their foaming streams below. There is no romance in the rumble of flour-rollers and the buzz of saws, but they mean a great deal of profitable business. The force exerted by the falls at low water is estimated at one hundred and thirty-five thousand horse-power.

St. Paul is the capital of Minnesota, and the Stateis building a magnificent new Capitol, constructed of granite and marble, with a lofty central dome, at a cost exceeding $2,000,000. There is a fine City Hall and many imposing and substantial business edifices. Its especial residence street, Summit Avenue, is upon a high ridge, parallel with and some distance back from the Mississippi, the chief dwelling, a large brownstone mansion, being the home of the leading railroad prince of the Northwest, President James J. Hill of the Great Northern Railroad. Here is also the new and spacious Roman Catholic Seminary of St. Thomas Aquinas. The old military post of Fort Snelling is on the river above St. Paul, near the mouth of Minnesota River. In Minneapolis, the great building is the City Hall, completed in 1896, and having a tower rising three hundred and fifty feet, giving a superb view. The Guaranty Loan Company's Building is one of the finest office structures in America, with its roof arranged for a garden, where concerts are given. Minneapolis has a widely extended residential section, with hundreds of attractive mansions in ornamental grounds. Near the river bank is the University of Minnesota, having well-equipped buildings and attended by twenty-eight hundred students.

Minneapolis is the greatest flour manufacturing city in the world. Its mills, of which there are some twenty-five, are located along the river near the falls, and have a daily capacity of over sixtythousand barrels, turning out about eighteen millions of barrels annually, which are sent all over the globe. The whole country west and northwest of Minneapolis, including the Red River Valley, the Dakotas and Manitoba, is practically a fertile wheat field, growing the finest grain that is produced in America, and this makes the prosperity of the city. The Pillsbury-Washburn Flour Mills Company are the leading millers. The great Pillsbury A mill, which turns out ten thousand seven hundred barrels a day, is the world's champion flour-mill. It is a marvel of the economical manufacture, the railway cars coming in laden with wheat, being quickly emptied, and then filled with loaded flour-barrels and sacks for shipment. Machinery does practically everything from the shovelling of wheat out of the car to the packing of the barrel or sack with the product. This huge mill stands in relation to the flour trade as Niagara does to waterfalls. The other great Minneapolis industry is the lumber trade. Minnesota is well timbered, a belt of fine forests, chiefly pine, stretching across it, known as theCoteau des Bois, or "Big Woods," an elevated plateau with a rolling surface, having thousands of lakes scattered through it, fed by springs, while their outlets go into streams feeding the Mississippi, down which the logs are floated to the booms above the falls. The extensive sawmills will cut over four hundred and fifty millions of feet of lumber in a year. Thus the flour andlumber have become the chief articles of export from Minneapolis.

There are several pleasant lakes in the neighborhood, which are popular resorts of the people of the "Twin Cities," the largest and most famous being Minnetonka, the Indian name meaning the "Big Water." It is a pretty lake, at nearly a thousand feet elevation, with low, winding and tree-clad shores, having little islets dotted over its surface, and myriads of indented bays and jutting peninsulas which extend its shore line to over a hundred miles, though the extreme length of the lake is barely seventeen miles. There are many attractive places on the shores and islands, and large steamers ply on its bosom. From this lake the discharge is through the Minnehaha River, and its Minnehaha Falls, the "Laughing Water," poetically praised by Longfellow in Hiawatha. The beautiful glen in which this graceful cataract is found has been made a park. The falls are about fifty feet high, and a critical observer has recorded that there is "only wanting a little more water to be one of the most picturesque cascades in the country." Below the Minnehaha Falls is another on a smaller scale, which the people thereabout have nicknamed the "Minnegiggle." Thus sings Longfellow of Minnehaha:

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