his pocket.
He died there more than fifty years afterward worth one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, and after having filled the highest offices his
country could bestow upon him. He owned a beautiful and elegant
residence in the city, situated on one of the avenues, with a frontage
toward the lake, of which a fine view is obtained. It is a modern
mansion, three stories in height, with large stately rooms. It looks
very little different externally from some of its neighbors, but the
fact that it was for thirty years the home of one of our Presidents
gives it importance and invests it with historic charm.

On board a steamer bound for Detroit we again plowed the waves. The day
was a delightful one; the morning had been cloudy and some rain had
fallen, but by ten o'clock the sky was clear, and the sunbeams went
dancing over the laughing waters. Hugh was on his high-horse, and full
of historic reminiscences.

"Do you know that this year is the two hundredth anniversary of a
remarkable event for this lake?" he began. "Well, it is. It was in 1681,
in the summer of the year, that the keel of the first vessel launched in
Western waters was laid at a point six miles this side of the Niagara
Falls. She was built by Count Frontenac who named her the Griffen. I
should like to have sailed in it."

"Its speed could hardly equal that of the Detroit," observed Vincent,
complacently.

"You hard, cold utilitarian!" exclaimed the Historian; "who cares
anything about that? It is the romance of the thing that would charm
me."

"And the romance consists in its being distant. We always talk of the
good old times as though they were really any better than our own age!
It is a beautiful delusion. Don't you know how in walking the shady
places are always behind us?"

The Historian's only answer to this banter was to shrug his shoulders
scornfully and to light a fresh cigar.

Lake Erie is about two hundred and forty miles in length and has a mean
breadth of forty miles. Its surface is three hundred and thirty feet
above Lake Ontario, and five hundred and sixty-five above the level of
the sea. It receives the waters of the upper lakes by means of the
Detroit River, and discharges them again by the Niagara into Lake
Ontario. Lake Erie has a shallow depth, but Ontario, which is five
hundred and two feet deep, is two hundred and thirty feet below the tide
level of the ocean, or as low as most parts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
and the b