river to Winona, where it crosses, thence to Madison, making connection
with a completed line to Chicago. When done, this will be the most
desirable _all rail_ route from the latter city to St. Paul and the
principal towns along the river in Minnesota.

These truly great enterprises, of which St. Paul is the centre, form a
just commentary on the prescience and industry of her people, who, while
watchful of their own, do not forget the general interest of all,
thereby giving to individual life a zest and recompense which mark only
the highest and best purposes of our race.

Thus we see the iron arms of this possible future capital of the nation
reaching out in all directions from this central seat of empire, binding
firmly to it the great resources and vast wealth of the outlying and
now tributary country, which as yet is only in the alphabet of its
development.

Time was when a visit to St. Paul was accounted an era in the life of
the traveller, since its remoteness and general inaccessibility involved
a special journey; but now, few fail to make the tour while passing
through the West, since both the facilities and pleasures are so great.

To stand at the head of two thousand miles of steamboat navigation along
the line of a single river is in itself, were there no city, an
inspiration. And when we contemplate that more than ten thousand miles
of inland navigation attaches to this great river and its tributaries,
at the head of which stands the beautiful city of St. Paul, we do not
marvel at the dreams of splendor and of power already haunting the
thinking population of this vast interior valley. A few brief years and
the sceptre of political empire will have passed forever into the hands