Lake Superior. I have no doubt the pine forest is still in the market; and
should any enterprising capitalist in this country feel disposed to enter
into partnership on a basis of bearing all expenses himself, giving only
the profits to his partner, he will find "Vose Palmer, Superior City,
Wisconsin, United States," ever ready to attend to him.

Before turning our steps westward from this inland ocean of Superior, it
will be well to pause a moment on its shore and look out over its bosom.
It is worth looking at, for the world possesses not its equal. Four
Hundred English miles in length, 50 miles across it, 600 feet above
Atlantic level, 900 feet in depth-one vast spring of purest crystal
water, so cold, that during summer months its waters are like ice itself,
and so clear, that hundreds of feet below the surface the rocks stand out
as distinctly as though seen through plate-glass. Follow in fancy the
outpourings of this wonderful basin; seek its future course in Huron,
Erie, and Ontario, in that wild leap from the rocky ledge which makes
Niagara famous through the world. Seek it farther still, in the quiet
loveliness of the Thousand Isles; in the whirl and sweep of the Cedar
Rapids; in the silent rush of the great current under the rocks at the
foot of Quebec. Ay, and even farther away still, down where the lone
Laurentian Hills come forth to look again upon that water whose earliest
beginnings they cradled along the shores of Lake Superior. There, close
to the sounding billows of the Atlantic, 2000 miles from Superior, these
hills--the only ones that ever last-guard the great gate by which the St.
Lawrence seeks the sea.

There are rivers whose current, running red with the silt and mud of
their soft alluvial shores, carry far into the ocean the record of their
muddy progress; but this glorious river system, through its many lakes
and various names, is ever the same crystal current, flowing pure from