the fountain-head of Lake Superior. Great cities stud its shores; but
they are powerless to dim the transparency of its waters. Steamships
cover the broad bosom of its lakes and estuaries; but they change not the
beauty of the water-no more than the fleets of the world mark the waves
of the ocean. Any person looking at the map's of the region bounding the
great lakes of North America will be struck by the absence of rivers
flowing into Lakes Superior, Michigan, or Huron from the south; in fact,
the drainage of the states bordering these lakes on the south is
altogether carried off by the valley of the Mississippi-it follows that
this valley of Mississippi is at a much lower level than the surface of
the lakes. These lakes, containing an area of some 73,000 square miles,
are therefore an immense reservoir held high over the level of the great
Mississippi valley, from which they are separated by a barrier of slight
elevation and extent.

It is not many years ago since an enterprising Yankee proposed to
annihilate Canada, dry up Niagara, and "fix British creation" generally,
by diverting the current of Lake Erie, through a deep canal, into the
Ohio River; but should nature, in one of her freaks of earthquake, ever
cause a disruption to this intervening barrier on the southern shores of
the great northern lakes, the drying up of Niagara, the annihilation of
Canada, and the divers disasters to British power, will in all
probability be followed by the submersion of half of the Mississippi
states under the waters of these inland seas.

On the 26th June I quitted the shores of Lake Superior and made my way
back to Moose Lake. Without any exception, the road thither was the very
worst I had ever travelled over--four horses essayed to drag a stage-waggon
over, or rather, I should say, through, a track of mud and ruts
impossible to picture. The stage fare amounted to $6, or 4s. for 34