distant when a large amount of grain will be shipped in bulk from the Minnesota harbor (Duluth) on Lake Superior, to the Liverpool market in England.

RIVERS.

Minnesota has five navigable rivers. The Mississippi (The Father of Waters,) having its rise in Lake Itaska, in the northern part of the State.

The St. Croix, flowing through a large portion of the lumbering region.

The Minnesota, rising in Dakota Territory and flowing through a large portion of the State empties into the Mississippi, five miles above St. Paul. It is navigable, in favorable seasons, about 300 miles.

The Red River of the North, forming the northwestern boundary of the State for a distance of 380 miles, and navigable about 250.

The St. Louis River, flowing into Lake Superior on our northeastern boundary, a distance of 135 miles.

Besides these, the largest rivers are the Root, Rum, Crow, Sauk, Elk, Long Prairie, Crow Wing, Blue Earth, Le Sueur, Maple, Cobb, Watonwan, Snake, Kettle, Redwood, Wild Rice, Buffalo, Chippewa, Marsh, Pomme de Terre, Lac qui Parle, Mustinka, Yellow Medicine, Two Rivers, Cottonwood, Cannon, Zumbro, Whitewater, Cedar, Red Lake, Straight, Vermillion, and others. These, with a vast number of smaller streams tributary to them, ramifying through fertile upland and grassy meadow, in every section of the State, afford invaluable facilities for the various purposes of lumbering, milling, manufacturing and agriculture.

In connection with her rivers, we will say that Minnesota has perhaps the finest water power, within her bounds, to be found in the world. This power is found all over the State, and though only very partially developed, it serves to manufacture 2,600,000 barrels of flour annually, and runs 250 saw mills.

TIMBER.

Minnesota is neither a timber nor a prairie State; yet it possesses in a large degree the advantages of both, there being unquestionably a better proportion of timber and prairie, and a more admirable intermingling of the two than in any other State. It is estimated that about one-third of Minnesota is timbered land, of more or less dense growth. In Iowa, it has been officially estimated that only about one-tenth to one-eight of the State is timbered.

On the head-waters of the various tributaries of the extreme Upper Mississippi and St. Croix rivers is an extensive forest country, known as the "pine region," comprising an estimated area of 21,000 square miles. Extending in a northeasterly and southwesterly direction, about 100 miles long, and an average width of 40, is the largest body of hard-wood timber between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. It lies on both sides of the Minnesota River, comprising in all an area of 5,000 square miles, and is known as the "Big Woods."

CLIMATE.

Prominent among the questions proposed by the immigrant seeking a new home in a new country, are those concerning the climate, its temperature, adaptation to the culture of the grand staples of food, and its healthfulness.

"The climate of Minnesota has often been the subject of unjust disparagement. 'It is too far north;' 'the winters are intolerable.' These and other similar remarks have found expression by those who should have known better. To the old settler of Minnesota, the seasons follow each other in pleasing succession. As the sun approaches his northern latitude, winter relaxes its grasp, streams and lakes are unbound, flowers spring up as if by the touch of some magic wand, and gradually spring is merged into the bright, beautiful June, with its long, warm days, and short, but cool and refreshing nights. The harvest months follow in rapid succession, till the golden Indian summer of early November foretells the approach of cold and snow; and again winter, with its short days of clear, bright sky and bracing air, and its long nights of cloudless beauty, completes the circle."

"Men," says the late J. B. Phillips, Commissioner of Statistics, "suffer themselves to be deluded with the idea that heat is in some way a positive good, and cold a positive evil. The world is in need of a sermon on the gospel and blessing of cold.

"What is there at best in the indolent languor of tropic siestas for any live man or woman to be pining after? Macauley, after his residence in India, did not. He said that you boiled there four or five months in the year, then roasted four or five more, and had the remainder of the year to 'get cool if you could.' 'If you could!' No way of refrigerating a tropic atmosphere has ever yet been devised; while you can be perfectly comfortable in any north temperate zone."

Again he says:

"The healthfulness of Minnesota is one of its strongest points. Having been, for a long time, a sanitary resort for persons threatened with pulmonary complaints, it has disappointed no reasonable expectation. It is equally favorable for those afflicted with liver diseases. Thus for the two great organs in the tripod of life, the liver and lungs, that is for two-thirds of life, Minnesota offers the most favorable conditions. She is more exempt from paludial fevers then any new State settled in the last half century. The fearful cost of human life it has required to subdue the soil in the States along the line of lat. 40° has never been estimated. With a moist, decaying vegetation, and a certain intensity and duration of summer and autumn heat, sickness of that kind is certain to come, no matter what they may say about having 'no sickness here.' It always exists when the requisite conditions are present. Freed from the depressing influence of this decimating foe, the average Minnesotian eats with a craving appetite, sleeps well, moves with a quick step and elastic spirits, and fights his life-battle sturdily and hopefully to the issue."

The mean yearly temperature of our Minnesota climate, (44.6,) coincides with that of Central Wisconsin, Michigan, Central New York, Southern Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine; but in the dryness of its atmosphere it has, both for health and comfort, at great advantage over those States. It is well known that dampness is the element from whence come sickness and suffering, either in cold or warm weather, and the dry atmosphere of winter in Minnesota, at an average temperature of 16°, makes the cold less felt than in warmer but damper climates several degrees farther south.

With the new year generally commences the severe cold of our winter, but for the last few seasons the old Minnesota winters seem to be giving place to much milder ones. During last winter the thermometer, in the most exposed places, scarcely ever marked zero, and now, on the 21st of December—weeks after they have had fierce snow storms south and southwest of us—good sleighing in Chicago and St. Louis—we are getting our first regular fall of snow, (only a slight sprinkling before,) which is falling unaccompanied with either wind or cold and giving a good promise of merry sleigh rides during the Christmas holidays.

Whether or not there has come a permanent change in our Minnesota winters, brought about by causes affected by population and settlement, we cannot say; but that such a change would not be acceptable to many of our old settlers we are convinced; not certainly to the enthusiast who writes as follows of our old, crisp, bright winters:

"Winter in Minnesota is a season of ceaseless business activity, and constant social enjoyment; and by those accustomed to long wintry storms, and continued alternations of mud, and cold, and snow, is pronounced far preferable to the winters in any section of the Northern States. Here there is an exhilaration in the crisp atmosphere which quickens the blood, and sends the bounding steps over the ringing snow with an exultant flurry of good-spirits akin