ant in the
hotel, and so many men had corner lots, dock locations, pine forests, and
pre-empted lands to sell me, that nothing but flight prevented my
becoming a large holder of all manner of Duluth securities upon terms
that, upon the clearest showing, would have been ridiculously favourable
to me. The principal object of my visit to Duluth was to discover if any
settlement existed at the Vermilion Lakes, eighty miles to the north and
not far from the track of the Expedition, a place which had been named to
the military authorities in Canada as likely to form a base of attack for
any filibusters who would be adventurous enough to make a dash at the
communication of the expeditionary force. A report of the discovery of
gold and silver mines around the Vermilion Lakes had induced a rush of
miners there during the previous year; but the mines had all "bust up,"
and the miners had been blown away to other regions, leaving the plant
and fixtures of quartz-crushing machinery standing drearily in the
wilderness. These facts I ascertained from the engineer, who had
constructed a forest track from Duluth to the mines, and into whose
office I penetrated in quest of information. He, too, looked upon me as a
speculator.

"Don't mind them mines," he said, after I had questioned him on all
points of distance and road; "don't touch them mines; they're clean gone
up. The gold in them mines don't amount to a row of pines, and there's
not a man there now."

That evening there came a violent thunder-storm, which cleared and cooled
the atmosphere; between ten o'clock in the morning and three in the
afternoon the thermometer fell 30 degrees. Lake Superior had asserted its
icy influence over the sun. Glad to get away from Duluth, I crossed the
bay to Superior City, situated on the opposite, or Wisconsin shore of the
lake. A curious formation of sand and shingle runs out from the shore of
Duluth, forming a long narrow spit of land projecting far into Lake
Superior. It bears the name of Minnesota Point, and has evidently been
formed by the opposing influence of the east wind over the great expanse
of the lake, and the current of the St. Louis River from the West. It has
a length of seven miles, and is only a few yards in width. Close to the
Wisconsin shore a break occurs in this long narrow spit, and inside this
opening lies the harbour and city of Superior incomparably a better
situation for a city and lake-port, level, sheltered, capacious