LETTER III. 



Michigan. Ferry Steamer. Detroit. State Agricultural Show. Railway Hints 

 for Home, to Prevent Dust, and communicate with Driver Shelter for Engine 

 Driver. Illinois. Extent of the Rich Valley of the Tipper Mississippi. 

 Chicago. Its wonderful Progress. Railway Investments. Development too 

 rapid. Encouraged by high Prices of Agricultural Produce. Money Panic 

 succeeded by Failure of Crops, and unhealthy Season. Immigration sus- 

 pended. Capacity of Country for rapid Improvement. View of the State of 

 Illinois on a Line of Seven Hundred Miles. Settlers from Vermont. Galena. 

 Dunleith. 



AT Windsor we crossed the American boundary line to Detroit, 

 in the State of Michigan, by the St. Clair Eiver, a deep crys- 

 tal stream, nearly a mile broad, flowing with a gentle current 

 of three miles an hour. This is the Bosphorus of North Am- 

 erica, by which the navigation of the St. Lawrence and the 

 Lower Lakes finds access to the three great inland seas of this 

 continent. The ferry-steamer by which we crossed was large 

 enough to accommodate 600 or 800 passengers with all their 

 baggage, and, in the saloon on the upper-deck, tables were 

 spread for supper, of which probably 100 partook. This forms 

 a convenient resting and refreshment room for through passen- 

 gers, who purpose continuing their westward journey by the 

 trains ready to start from the other side. 



Detroit is a very handsome town, finely situated on the 

 river. It was laid out by a mathematical genius, who has 

 succeeded in producing a very elegant, spacious, and con- 

 veniently arranged town. The old French farmers, whose 

 original settlements stretched in long narrow strips back from 

 the river, have all become extremely wealthy by the sale of 



