410 



ILLINOIS. 



reached respecting the value of these birds to 

 the farmer and the gardener. 



Finalty, growing out of the work on the food 

 of birds, are two papers on the food of preda- 

 ceous beetles, showing that many species which 

 have hitherto been regarded as strictly insec- 

 tivorous, really depend to a very great extent 

 upon vegetable structures. 



The State has an Industrial University, from 

 which about 1,500 students have graduated 

 during its existence. They have gone into 

 practical avocations as farmers, machinists, 

 chemists, railway builders, teachers, etc. An 

 art-gallery in the Capitol of the State contains 

 illustrations of the various kinds of instruction 

 imparted to the students. The results presented 

 as the fruits of the carpenter's and machine 

 shops have been thus described : 



One follows the beginner, step by step, as he first 

 planes out a simple squared bit of wood, a lesson 

 which proves a most serious one, before the accurate 

 demands of the inexorable instructor are satisfied. 

 Then the squared piece is dressed into octagonal and 

 cylindric forms, the latter as smooth and as truly 

 rounded, answering the tests of sight and touch, as if 

 turned in the lathe. Then follows a series of joints, 

 mortises and tenons in many forms, dados, dovetails, 

 miters, hopper-joints, and splices, all accurately fitted, 

 not forced nor stuffed with glue, sawdust or " dutch- 

 men," but truly joined, wood and wood, in workman's 

 fashion. This series contains twenty -five lessons and 

 shows the results of two hours' work per day for a term 

 of fourteen weeks. Advanced work follows ; turning, 

 molding, with elegant specimens of veneered and in- 

 laid work. This school shows also a series of models 

 of structures built to scale. The one year's builder's 

 course is illustrated by a frame of a barn, every brace, 

 mortise, and pin accurately shown, the timbers evi- 

 dently so placed as to do the most good. Two mod- 

 els of stairways are presented, one a regular "flier 

 and winder," the other having an elliptical well, both 

 furnished with hand-rails, newels, and balusters com- 

 plete. 



The circuit of the architectural work leads to the 

 work of the macliine-shop. Here the student begins 

 in the pattern-shop first upon simple forms, after- 

 ward on others more intricate. Then he works at 

 the wood-lathe. Blacksmith's work follows ; upset- 

 ting, drawing, bending, shaping, etc.; then at the vise, 

 with cold-chisel and file ; then turning with hand- 

 tools at the small lathe ; with machine-tools at the 

 engine-lathe; drilling and counter-boring : and find- 

 ing true surfaces with the planer. In both these 

 scries of elementary work no value whatever attaches 

 to the pieces when finished. If not wanted as a 

 sample, it goes to the kindling-wood or the scrap- 

 pile. Often illustrating the doctrine of the " survival 

 of the fittest," it is to the workman only a silent 

 memento of many others, spoiled and discarded by 

 accident, want of skill, or inattention. Other space 

 in this case is occupied by working models of me- 

 chanical movements in iron and brass, made in the 

 shop by advanced pupils. During the last few terms, 

 the nigher classes of this school have been occupied in 

 the construction of a large and powerful drilling- 

 machine. 



Unusual interest has been awakened in a 

 portion of the State relative to the construction 

 of a canal from Davenport, on the Mississippi 

 River, to Hennepin, on the Illinois River. This 

 would open a line of water communication 

 between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi 

 River. The opening of what has been termed 

 "the Mississippi barge route" from St. Louis 



to the sea, for the transportation of grain to 

 New Orleans, was the basis of the excitement. 

 The immense quantities of grain transported l>\ 

 these large barges threatened very seriously 

 the interests of Chicago, and foreboded a com- 

 mercial revolution. With a continuous line of 

 water route. to the sea-board via the lakes, tho 

 St. Lawrence River, and the Erie Canal, 

 Chicago got early control of the grain-ship- 

 ping business of the "West, and left to St. Louis 

 only such share of the trade as the latter could 

 contrive to secure by reduced railroad tariffs in 

 summer or by the equality enforced by the 

 frosts of winter, when such grain as was 

 moved to the sea-board by rail might come as 

 well from the one as from the other of the 

 competing cities. Chicago, however, had the 

 lion's share of the business the year round, 

 such is the pertinacity with which trade will 

 flow in channels to which it has become accus- 

 tomed. But a revolution was impending. 

 With the cost of barge transportation from St. 

 Louis to New Orleans only five or six cents a 

 bushel, and with vessels at the latter place ready 

 to take wheat to Liverpool for twenty cents a 

 bushel, St. Louis seemed to have grasped at last 

 the scepter of the grain-trade. 



Conventions were held in various places to 

 give expression to the views of those whose 

 interests were affected. At one held at Daven- 

 port, on May 26th, the following, among many- 

 other resolutions, were adopted : 



This convention, representing the people of the 

 Mississippi Valley ana the Northwest, in pursuance 

 of the' call for a convention, and in furtherance of the 

 purposes thereof, unanimously declare : 



1. That Congress should devise by law, and sustain 

 by liberal and efficient appropriations, a system of 

 cheap transportation by water route, connecting the 

 Mississippi Biver and its tributaries with the Eastern 

 Atlantic sea-board and Gulf of Mexico. 



2. That it has been the policy of Congress and the 

 desire of the people of the Northwest for many years, 

 to inaugurate ana complete a system of water-channel 

 improvement, having the Mississippi lor its base. To 

 give greater efficiency to this policy, there should be 

 constructed from the Mississippi B'iver, on the most 

 direct and feasible route to the Illinois Eiver, at 

 Hennepin, and thence to the lake at Chicago, a canal 

 adequate to the present and future transportation needs 

 of the great part of the Northwest to whose people 

 such work of internal' improvements is an imperative 

 necessity for relief from expensive freight rates on the 

 produce and commerce of the country, and that the 

 work so long needed should be immediately com- 

 menced. 



3. That the continued improvement of the Mis- 

 sissippi Eiver under the auspices of the Mississippi 

 Eiver Commission, created by act of Congress, is a 

 work of great importance, and Congress ought to pro- 

 mote the scheme of improvement by the most liberal 

 appropriations, in a separate appropriation bill there- 

 for ; and we emphasize and enforce the united and 

 earnest demand of the people of the entire Mississippi 

 Valley that Congress shall make prompt and adequate 

 appropriations for the improvement of the river and 

 its navigable tributaries, trom the falls of St. Anthony 

 to the Gulf of Mexico, and that this convention has no 

 sympathy with any policy that would depreciate or 

 hinder this great enterprise of making Ihlly navi- 

 gable, and of building up the great commerce upon 

 this central river, Nature's great highway of the con- 

 tinent. 



