SUPERIOR 



5631 



SUPERSTITION 



rising abruptly from the water's edge to heights 

 of several hundred feet; the Michigan shore is 

 diversified by the famous sandstone walls known 

 as the Pictured Rocks. The lake basin is a 

 huge rift in a region rich in copper, iron, nickel 

 and other ores. The waters of the lake are 

 unusually pure, and they abound in whitefish, 

 sturgeon and trout. Because of its depth the 

 lake never freezes over, though ice forms along 

 its border and in the bays. 



This fresh-water lake is an important link in 

 the greatest water highway of North America. 

 It discharges at the eastern end into Lake Hu- 

 ron by way of the Saint Mary's River. There 

 is a difference of over twenty feet in the levels 

 of the two lakes, and at the drop from Lake 

 Superior to the river, where there is an impass- 

 able series of rapids, there have been built 

 the famous locks of the Sault Sainte Marie Ca- 

 nal. One may travel by water from Duluth, 

 at the western end of Lake Superior, to the 

 Atlantic Ocean. The chief cities on the lake 

 are Duluth and Superior, Minn.; Marquette, 

 Mich.; Ashland, Wis., and Fort William and 

 Port Arthur, Canada. See GREAT LAKES; SAULT 

 SAINTE MARIE CANALS. 



Consult Agussiz's Lake Superior: Its Physical 

 Character, Vegetation and Animals. 



SUPERIOR, Wis., a port of entry and the 

 county seat of Douglas County, is situated in 

 the extreme northwest corner of the state, 150 

 miles north and east of Saint Paul. Superior 

 and Duluth, separated only by the Saint Louis 

 River, are the most southwesterly ports on 

 Lake Superior, and together form one of the 

 greatest inland shipping points in the United 

 States. Superior has enormous facilities for 

 water commerce, and its railroads are the Chi- 

 cago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul; the Duluth, 

 South Shore & Atlantic; the Great Northern; 

 the Minneapolis, Saint Paul & Sault Ste. Marie 

 and the Northern Pacific. The population, 

 which includes a large percentage of Scandina- 

 vians and Irish, was 40,384 in 1910, and 46,226 

 in 1916 (Federal estimate). The area exceeds 

 thirty-six square miles. 



Superior is the seat of one of the state nor- 

 mal schools. Other prominent features are the 

 Federal building, completed in 1908 at a cost 

 of $325,000, the Carnegie Library and several 

 hospitals. One of the chief points of interest 

 is the deep, protected harbor, which has been 

 improved by government, state and city ap- 

 propriations and supplied with some of the 

 largest coal and ore docks and grain elevators 

 in the world. A great steel bridge crosses the 



river to Duluth. Superior has furniture facto- 

 ries, foundries and machine shops, ironworks 

 and shipbuilding yards. Ample power for manu- 

 facture is supplied by a power plant in the 

 river. 



It is probable that the site of Superior was 

 visited by Radisson and Grosseilliers in 1661. 

 A trading post was established here by Sieur 

 Du Lhut in 1680, but no permanent settle- 

 ment was made until about the middle of the 

 nineteenth century. The town was organized 

 in 1855, and its development was promoted by 

 several capitalists and congressmen, among 

 whom was Stephen A. Douglas. Superior be- 

 came a city in 1889. H.M.C. 



SU'PERNAT'URAL. See OCCULT. 



SU'PERNAT'URALISM, the belief that 

 there is an agency above the natural in reli- 

 gion. It is based on man's instinct to look to 

 a power higher than himself for care and direc- 

 tion, an expression of which is found, for ex- 

 ample, in the words of the Greek poet, Homer: 

 As young birds ope the mouth for food, 

 So all men need the gods. 



An example of modern supernaturalism is 

 the acceptance of the revelation and miracles 

 of the Bible. It is opposed by rationalism, 

 which formulates its beliefs entirely by the ex- 

 ercise of reason. 



SUPERSTITION, super stish'un. Supersti- 

 tion represents a phase in the history of think- 

 ing. The most difficult art that man has had 

 to learn is the art of reasoning. He has learned 

 it very slowly, very imperfectly. Primitive 

 habits of thought, childlike inclinations to be- 

 lieve, yet persist; such tendencies are respon- 

 sible for the continuance of superstition. The 

 contrast to and the remedy for superstitious 

 thinking is scientific thinking. In these days 

 of general education, every one knows a consid- 

 erable mass of facts and of the relations of 

 cause and effect, which science has established 

 by observation, proof and insight into prin- 

 ciples or laws of nature. Every one's mind has 

 been drilled and formed by some measure of 

 scientific thinking. But outside this limited 

 range and even within it all sorts <rf notions 

 are held which are more closely related to 

 superstition than to science. 



Among the relatively uneducated masses, the 

 tendency to cling to the earlier, simpler habits of 

 belief is strong; it was far stronger when edu- 

 cation was confined to the elect, and even they 

 were imperfectly freed from unscientific notions 

 and practices. Because science has illuminated 

 so fully the facts of physics and chemistry, of 



