Wheelock's Report, greater than the whole motive-power—steam and water—employed in textile manufactures in England in 1850. Thirteen flouring-mills, fourteen saw-mills, two woollen-mills, and two paper-mills, are already erected. Six million dollars have been invested in manufacturing at this point. The only difficulty to be encountered is the preservation of the falls in their present position. Beneath the slate rock over which the torrent pours is a strata of soft sandstone, which rapidly wears away. Measures have been taken, however, to preserve the cataract in its present condition, by constructing an apron to carry the water some distance beyond the verge of the fall and thus prevent the breaking away of the rock.

No one can behold the natural advantages at Minneapolis without coming to the conclusion that it is to be one of the great manufacturing cities of the world if the fall can be kept in its present position. Cotton can be loaded upon steamers at Memphis, and discharged at St. Paul. The climate here is exceedingly favorable for the manufacturing of cotton goods. The lumber-mills by and by will give place to other manufactures, and Minneapolis will rank with Lowell or Fall River.

Our ride brings us to St. Anthony on the east bank of the river, where we behold the Mississippi roaring and tumbling over the slate-stone ledges, and hear the buzzing and humming of the machinery in the saw-mills.

St. Anthony was one of the earliest-settled towns in the State. Its projectors were Southern men. Streets were laid out, stores erected, a great hotel built, and extravagant prices asked for land, but the owners of Minneapolis offered lots at cheaper rates, and found purchasers. The war came on, and the proprietors of St. Anthony being largely from the South, the place ceased to grow, while its rival on the western shore moved steadily onward in a prosperous career. But St. Anthony is again advancing, for many gentlemen doing business in Minneapolis reside there. The interests of the two places are identical, and will advance together.

How can one describe what is indescribable? I can only speak of this city as situated on a beautiful plain, with the Mississippi thundering over a cataract with a power sufficient to build up half a dozen Lowells; with a country behind it where every acre of land as far as the eye can see, and a hundred or a thousand times farther, is capable of cultivation and of supporting a population as dense as that of Belgium or China. Wide streets, costly school-houses, church spires, a community in which the New England element largely predominates,—a city where every other door does not open to a lager-beer saloon, as in some Western towns; where the sound of the saw and the hammer, and the click of the mason's trowel and sledge, are heard from morning till night; where the streets are filled with wagons from the country, bringing in grain and carrying back lumber, with the farmer, his wife and buxom daughter, and tow-headed, bright-faced little boys perched on top—such are the characteristics of Minneapolis.

There was a time when Pegasus was put in harness, and the ancients, according to fable, tried to put Hercules to work. If those days of classic story have gone by, better ones have come, for the people of Minneapolis have got the Father of Waters in harness. He is cutting out one hundred million feet of lumber per annum here. I can hear him spinning his saws. He is turning a score of mill-stones, and setting a million or two of spindles in motion, and pretty soon some of the citizens intend to set him to weaving bags and cloth by the hundred thousand yards! Only a tithe of his strength is yet laid out. These men, reared in the East, and developed in the West, will make the old Father work for them henceforth. He will not be allowed to idle away his time by leaping and laughing year in and year out over yonder cataract. He must work for the good of the human race. They will use him for the building of a great mart of industry,—for the erection of houses and homes, the abodes of comfort and happiness and of joyful and peaceful life.

CHAPTER II.

ST. CLOUD AND BEYOND.

St. Cloud was the rendezvous of the party, where a grand ovation awaited us,—a band of music at the station, a dinner at the hotel, a ride to Sauk Rapids, two miles above the town.

St. Cloud is eighty miles above St. Paul, situated on the west bank of the river, and is reached by the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. The goods of the Hudson Bay Company pass through the town. Three hundred tons per annum are shipped from Liverpool to Montreal, from Montreal to Milwaukie, from Milwaukie by rail to this point, and from hence are transported by oxen to the Red River, taken down that stream on a small steamer to Lake Winnipeg, then sent in boats and canoes up the Assinniboin, the Saskatchawan, and to all the numerous trading-posts between Winnipeg and the Arctic Ocean.

We are getting towards the frontier. We come upon frontiersmen in leggings, slouch hat, and fur coat,—carrying their rifles. Indians are riding their ponies. Wigwams are seen in the groves. Carts are here from Pembina and Fort Garry after supplies. And yet, in the suburbs of the town we see a large Normal School building just completed. A magnificent bridge costing $40,000 spans the Mississippi. At Sauk Rapids the river rolls over a granite ledge, and a chartered water-power company is erecting a dam, constructing a canal, and laying the foundations for the second great manufacturing city upon the Mississippi.

This section has been a favorite locality for German emigrants. Nearly one half of the inhabitants of Stearns County, of which St. Cloud is the county-seat, are Germans. Here we bid good by to the locomotive and take the saddle instead, with light carriages for occasional change.

We leave hotels behind, and are to enjoy the pleasures of camp-life.

Our party as made up consists of the following persons:—

Gov. J. Gregory Smith, St. Albans, Vt.
W. C. Smith, M. C.                     "         "
W. H. Lord, D. D., Montpelier, Vt.
F. E. Woodbridge, Vergennes, Vt.
S. W. Thayer, M. D., Burlington, Vt.
Hon. R. D. Rice, Augusta, Me.
P. Coburn,                "         "
E. F. Johnson, Middletown, Conn.
C. C. Coffin, Boston.
P. W. Holmes, New York City.
A. B. Bayless, Jr., New York City.
W. R. Marshall, St. Paul, Gov. of Minnesota.
E. M. Wilson, M. C., Minneapolis.
G. A. Brackett,                "

The list is headed by Ex-Governor Smith, President of the Northern Pacific Railroad and of the Vermont Central. It fell to his lot to be Chief Magistrate of the Green Mountain State during the rebellion, and among all the loyal governors there was no one that excelled him in energy and executive force. He was here, there, and everywhere,—one day in Vermont, the next in Washington, the third in the rear of the army looking after the wounded. I remember seeing him at Fredericksburg during those terrible weeks that followed the