NOTES OF AN AMERICAN TOUR. 
235 
eye could distinguish on each side of the line. It was a 
nearly level plain, bounded by mountain ranges at various 
distances, from ten to fifty miles probably; with a light 
sandy soil having very little grass to be seen, but covered 
with flowering plants in great patches. Otherwise it looked 
a desert, with scarcely a trace of human or animal life, and 
hardly any trees to be seen. 
Chicago was next reached, which is the third largest city 
in the States, having more than 500,000 population. It is 
situated on the shore of Lake Michigan, one of the gigantic 
inland seas 70 miles across and nearly 300 miles in 
length, which has waves breaking on the shore and quite a 
rough sea sometimes. Chicago is remarkable for the rapidity 
with which it has been rebuilt in the fifteen years since a 
terrible and most destructive fire destroyed a large portion 
of the city, and for the handsome and substantial character 
of the new buildings that have been erected. 
A special feature of the place is the great stock yards for 
cattle and pigs, and large grain warehouses, containing the 
largest store of both in the world ; also the great manufacture 
of tinned meats in connection with the stock yards, and the 
special mode of killing the cattle by a rifle shot, the most 
humane and also most economical system. 
The grand Niagara Falls were then visited,—“ Thunder 
of Waters,” as the name is said to mean in the Indian 
language,—the largest of waterfalls as regards the enormous 
volume of water passing over the falls, though much exceeded 
in height by other falls. The finest view is from the high 
banks on the Canadian side, where a complete view of the 
whole is obtained:—the great ITorse-shoe Fall in front, 
half-a-mile width at the edge of the fall, with twenty 
feet thickness of water in the centre, and the American 
Fall beyond, a quarter-of-a-mile width, with Goat Island 
dividing them, and the three small Sister Islands at the 
extremity stretching out into the Upper Rapids. The 
great Whirlpool Rapids are two miles below the Falls, where 
the whole mass of water is forced through a narrow rocky 
channel, only 220 feet width. The deep indentation formed 
in the centre of the Horse-shoe Fall by the wearing away of 
the rocks is well seen in this view. 
The return to New York by railway, 450 miles from 
Niagara, gave an illustration of American competition in 
railways, which is being carried on to a ruinous extent in 
many districts ; there are two rival lines for this distance 
which have cut down the fares to only |d. per mile (1 cent 
per mile). 
