rates than those expensive side-wheel boats could pretend to do. So they
have gradually disappeared from these waters, until at present their
number is very small, compared with what it was ten years ago, while
the number of screw-propellers is increasing yearly, as well as that of
sail-vessels.

Great as is this lake-commerce now, it is still but in its infancy. The
productive capacities of most of the States which border upon these
waters are only beginning to be developed. If in twenty-five years the
trade has grown to its present proportions, what may be expected from it
in twenty-five years more?

The secession of the Gulf States from the Union, and the closing of the
Mississippi to the products of the Northwest, could we suppose such a
state of things to be possible, would still more clearly show the value
of the lake-route to the ocean.

Run the line of 36° 30' across the continent from sea to sea, and build
a wall upon it, if you will, higher than the old wall of China, and the
Northern Confederacy will contain within itself every element of wealth
and prosperity. Commerce and agriculture, manufactures and mines,
forests and fisheries,--all are there.




THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS YOUNG.


At Munich, last summer, I made the acquaintance of M---y, the famous