From the Great Lakes to Puset Sound. 
“To the doorways of the West-Wind, 
To the portals of the Sunset.” 
|HILE, in the old world, armies have been contending 
for the possession of narrow strips of territory, 
in kingdoms themselves smaller than many single 
American States, and venerable savants have been 
predicting the near approach of the time when the 
population of the world shall have outstripped the 
means of subsistence, there has arisen, between the 
headwaters of the Mississippi and the mouth of the 
stately Columbia, an imperial domain, more than three 
times the size of the German empire, and capable of sus¬ 
taining upon its own soil one hundred millions of people. 
What little has been done—for it is but little, comparatively— 
toward the development of its amazing resources, has called into 
existence, on its eastern border, two great and beautiful cities, which have 
sprung up side by side on the banks of the great Father of Waters. 
It is there, at St. Paul and Minneapolis, that the traveler’s journey to Won¬ 
derland may be said to begin. And what could be more fitting ? for are they 
not wonders in themselves, presenting, as they do, the most astonishing picture 
of rapid expansion the world has ever seen ? 
But it is not their magnitude that excites the greatest surprise. If there is 
a single newspaper reader in ignorance of the fact that the State census of 
1885 found them with a population of 240,597 ? or that the 23,994 buildings 
erected within their limits since the beginning of 1882, represent a frontage of 
over 100 miles and an expenditure of $69,895,390, or that their banking capital 
(?) 
