LAKE SUPERIOR. 39 



nations, and is the native highway between Hudson's 

 River and Hudson's Bay. Another through Brule 

 River leads into the head waters of the Mississippi, 

 and thence, by ascending the Missouri, to the rivers 

 that empty into the Pacific Ocean. These portages 

 were traversed yea.r after year by the aboriginal in 

 habitants, who have left their tracks in the well-worn 

 paths that are still followed by the voyageurs, and 

 are suggestive of easy grades to those who wish to 

 bind our country together by paddle-wheel and rail- 

 road track. 



Lake Superior, with a surface six hundred feet 

 above, and a bottom three hundred feet below 

 the level of the sea, stretches out in vastness and 

 splendor five hundred miles long by nearly two hun- 

 dred broad, and holds in its bosom islands that would 

 make respectable kingdoms in the old world. On 

 the southern shore its sandstone rocks are worn by 

 the waves and storms into fantastic shapes, imitative 

 of ancient castles or modern vessels, or arc hollowed 

 out into deep caverns ; on the north the bolder shore 

 rises into rugged mountains whose face has been 

 seamed by the moving ice-drift of former ages. In 

 the country bordering upon the south are located 

 inexhaustible mines of copper and iron of immense 

 value ; and along the northern coast are found agates 

 and precious stones. 



A hundred streams ponr their contents into the 

 great lake which, from its enormous size and depth, 

 retaining the temperature of winter through the 

 summer months, empties its clear, cold, transparent 



