CITIES, AMERICAN. (Towns, Two HABBOES.) 



173 



engines and drums for hoisting purposes, and 

 electric-light machinery consisting of 2 dyna- 

 mos of 20 lights each, lighting pits, trestles, 

 and docks. Two gangs of miners are worked, 

 one by night and one by day, throughout the 

 year. The number of men employed in the 

 pits is about 1,100; the wages each month 

 amount to about $55,000. Tower pit No. 1 at 

 a depth of 100 feet when opened for a distance 

 of 2.">0 feet on the length of vein showed good 

 ore at one point over 155 feet in width. The 

 ore of Tower pit No. 2 showed clean for 400 

 feet, with an average width of 100 feet in ore. 

 The shaft in this deposit is 60 feet deep, the 

 ore being taken through a tunnel from the 

 bottom of the shaft to the railroad cars by an 

 endless rope attached to 9 cars with a capacity 

 of 2 tons each. The Breitung pit, where a 

 diamond-drill is in operation, lies south of the 

 Tower, and is from 10 to 40 feet wide by 100 

 feet long and 50 feet deep. The North Lee 

 has been opened 200 feet in length by 50 

 feet in depth, and from 30 to 40 feet in width, 

 a shaft having been sunk 50 feet below the 

 bottom from which drifts are being run. The 

 South Lee shows a vein 20 feet wide exposed 

 for about 100 feet in length. The pits of this 

 company are all comprised in the length of 

 one mile. The ore bed is blasted with dyna- 

 mite cartridges containing about 50 per cent, 

 of nitro-glycerine, the blasts being discharged 

 every six hours. The product of these mines, 

 4,000 tons of ore daily, is shipped to steel-works 

 in Pittsburg and Chicago, and supplies furnaces 

 in Duluth, Buffalo, Troy, Toledo, Ashtabula, 

 Cleveland, Erie, Scranton, and other cities. 

 The Minnesota Iron Company have expended 

 in the building and equipment of the railroad 

 and ore docks, and in the development of the 

 mines not less than $4,000,000. New receiv- 

 ing ore docks have been built by the company 

 in Cleveland the present year (1888), bringing 

 the ore into direct competition with foreign 

 ores. An immense body of iron ore of a high 

 grade has been discovered this year in section 

 19, by the Minnesota Exploration Company. 

 Four miles from Tower is the Union mine, the 

 property of which extends along the range for 

 the distance of about a mile. The post-office 

 of Tower mines is called Soudan. Tower is 

 connected with Two Harbors by a railroad 68 

 miles in length, constructed in 1884, and ex- 

 tended to Duluth in 1887, connecting the 

 mines with the capital of the State by rail via 

 that city. The Duluth and Iron Range Rail- 

 road is equipped with upward of 350 double 

 eight-wheel ore cars with a capacity of 24 

 gross tons each the Minnesota Iron Company 

 alone getting out the present year 180 cars of 

 ore daily and 17 large consolidated locomo- 

 tives, which haul from 450 to 500 tons to a 

 train. The railroad passes through spruce and 

 tamarack swamps to Two Harbors and through 

 miles of otherwise unbroken wilderness. The 

 substructure across the swamps where it was 

 said a railroad never could be built is a cordu- 



roy three feet thick, supporting stone ballast 

 over which from 2,000 to 3,000 gross tons of 

 ore are transported daily during the shipping 

 season. In the stock piles nine cubic feet of 

 ore will weigh one gross ton. The grades are 

 very steep, and over $100,000 is to be expend- 

 ed in lowering them. This will admit of an 

 increase in the length of the ore-trains. Near- 

 ly half a million tons of ore have been shipped 

 over the road the present season. From Two 

 Harbors to Duluth, Minn., the line passes along 

 the shore of Lake Superior, opening up a re- 

 gion of several thousand square miles abound- 

 ing in wealth. It is estimated that there are 

 1,500,000,000 feet of pine lumber in the vicin- 

 ity which can be easily reached. A popular 

 division of the railroad is the Lester Park 

 Short Line. Lake Vermilion, on which the 

 town lies, is 35 miles in length, and contains 

 371 islands. Its shores are irregular, and bor- 

 dered with a forest of pines alternating with 

 hills covered with verdure and wild flowers 

 which overlook the Tower mines and the ad- 

 joining town. From Jasper's Peak there is a 

 fine view of the Indian reservation on an isl- 

 and in the most picturesque portion of the 

 lake, which the inhabitants still navigate in 

 birch-bark canoes, sometimes formed of one 

 piece of bark weighing 25 pounds. It abounds 

 with fish, and in the woods on its banks are 

 large and small game. A little steamer takes 

 pleasure parties across its waters, which at sun- 

 set are of the color of vermilion. 



A range of hills, bordering the southern 

 shore of the lake, embraces some of the richest 

 and most extensive deposits of iron ore in the 

 world, discovered in 1880 by George C. Store, 

 of Duluth, Minn., and scientifically explored 

 by Prof. Chester, of Hamilton College, the work 

 of collecting the specimens employing two 

 summers, and that of examination one winter. 



Two Harbors, a town in northern Minnesota, 

 on the shores of Agate Bay, 27 miles north of 

 Duluth, population about 400. It is a popular 

 pleasure-resort, has first-class hotels, a brick 

 machine-shop, car-shop, foundry, round-house 

 for locomotives, and an ore pier extending 600 

 feet into the bay, provided with 130 pockets, 

 each with a capacity of 110 tons, making the 

 dock-storage 14,300 tons. The docks of the 

 Duluth and Iron Range Railroad received, in 

 1888, 30,000 tons of coal. The first cargo of 

 iron ore from the Tower mines was shipped 

 from the ore docks on Aug. 19, 1884, the ship- 

 ments amounting that year to 62,124 tons. In 

 1885 the shipments reached 225,484 tons; in 

 1886, 300,000 tons ; in 1887, 400,000 tons. In 

 1888, for the season to August 20, the ship- 

 ments of iron ore were 185,000 tons as against 

 191,000 tons for 1887 to that date, and 185,000 

 tons for 1886 to the same day. Four acres of 

 dock property are owned by the Elys to be 

 used for shipping granite. An appropriation of 

 $10,000 has been made by the Government for 

 a light-house. The town has a building asso- 

 ciation and has had a rapid growth. A steam- 



