With all the necessary rites thus properly performed, 

 the rising flood of summer travel will flow irresistably 

 toward it. Travelers from all parts of Minnesota and 

 travelers from many other states will be attracted by 

 its fame, and those who came to rave will stand awe- 

 struck. For nature here has staged a masterpiece. 



Flowing past Carlton in an unpretentious rocky bed, 

 the St. Louis river shows its first attempt at grandeur 

 in a mighty fall at Thompson. A great dam here di- 

 verts a portion of the river's flood to supply the power 

 plant farther down the valley. Four great six-foot 

 tubes, built of redwood staves and bound with bands 

 of steel, lead the water down to the mighty turbines 

 360 feet below and several miles away. These turbines, 

 driven by the rushing tides, develop thousands of horse 

 power and convert it into electricity, which in turn 

 supplies Duluth, Superior and all the towns along the 

 Range with light and power. 



This is in its way a wonderful thing, but after all 

 it is only an economic scheme to increase the growing 

 power of man, and sinks into insignificance beside the 

 untrammeled art of nature. 



That first wild leap at Thompson is but the begin- 

 ning of a long wild revel. With a mighty roar the old 

 river rises in his springtime humor, and bursting over 

 the conventional bonds of the man-made dam returns 

 to the wilful course of his youth, and hurls himself 

 Bacchant-like through the deepening chasm of his old 

 age. Down through the rocky gorge he bounds in com- 

 plete abandonment. He casts his former dignity to the 

 winds, only to attain a new dignity greater yet in the 

 superb recklessness of his headlong course. 



