through its mighty natural features, has,
among its chief grandeurs, this water system of the great northern
lakes, the frontier of the ever-progressive and patriotic West and
North. In dimensions, sublimity, and beauty, by the consent of all, it
is without parallel on earth.

A volume of the purest fresh water is gathered in Lake Superior, without
visible, adequate supply, to a depth of one thousand feet, with a length
of near five hundred miles, and average breadth of one hundred and sixty
miles, on a bottom lifted six hundred feet above sea level.

This incalculable mass of water moves its limpid wave through the Saut
Sainte Marie into its twin seas, Lakes Michigan and Huron, then by St.
Clair and Detroit Rivers is poured through Lake Erie, ever gradually
descending, till, at great Niagara, 'The Thunder of the Waters,' it
tosses in fury along its rapids, leaps the cataract in glory, at a rate
of one hundred millions of tons of water the hour, and then sweeps away
into Lake Ontario, to form that northern Mississippi, the River St.
Lawrence, which, for over one thousand miles, holds on its ever
increasing and widening current, in majesty to the broad Atlantic. By
the canals at the Falls and Saut Sainte Marie, direct and continuous
ship and steam navigation for sea-going vessels from the Atlantic to
Superior City, the extreme Northwest, or Chicago on the Southwest, over
three thousand miles through the heart of the continent, is open, while
the American coast line along these great waters, exceeds thirty-two
hundred miles. Complete in itself, the source of life, health, fine
climate, fertility, wealth, and countless blessings to all its shores
and valleys, it is divided by lofty barriers from all the other chief
water systems of the United States. The Mississippi rises in the
highlands of Minnesota at Lake Itasca, more than one hundred miles west
of Lake Superior, and gathers in its course all the rivers of its
valley. Still loftier mountains separate the sources of the Hudson and
Connecticut, and the other rivers of the Atlantic slope.

Blessed with soil and climate unsurpassed, and a Government the nearest
to perfection, this region, watered by a mighty inland ocean, is already
the chief granary of the world, as well as its great mineral store,
although its railway system is not yet extended to its utmost limits;
and beyond Michigan it is scarce thirty years since the Americans gained
a settlement in its borders.