COMMUNICATIONS. 
THE PENOKEE IRON RANGE. 
BY I. A. LAPHAM, OP MILWAUKEE. 
Dr. J. W. Hoyt, 
Secretary Wisconsin State Agricultural Society: 
Dear Sir :—In compliance with your request that I furnish 
a paper of some description for the Fifth Yolume of the Trans¬ 
actions of the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, I here¬ 
with forward to you a communication concerning the Penokee 
Iron Range. 
O 
Where and what is the Penokee Iron Range —I think I 
hear the reader exclaim ; and it is my present purpose to 
answer this question, and to make known some important facts 
in regard to this remarkable Range, and the little known and 
almost.unexplored part of our State of Wisconsin where it is 
found. It is no credit to the citizens of a State to be obliged 
to confess ignorance of its geography, its physical features, 
its resources, animal, vegetable, and mineral. While we are 
sufficiently posted in regard to the vast deposits of iron in 
Michigan, in Missouri, and even in Sweden, how few of us 
realize that there are equally magnificent deposits wdthin our 
own borders. 
Let us therefore take the first steam boat bound for Lake 
Superior, this largest and finest body of fresh water in the 
whole world ; let us pass by the many things of interest at 
Mackina, at the Sault de Ste. Marie, and even the rich copper 
mines of Kewenaw and Ontonagon; passing all these, we will 
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