only illustrates the position
of Duluth in the United States, but exhibits its relations with all
created things. It even goes farther than this. It lifts the shadowy
veil of futurity, and affords us a view of the golden prospects of
Duluth far along the dim vista of ages yet to come.

If gentlemen will examine it, they will find Duluth not only in the
centre of the map, but represented in the centre of a series of
concentric circles, one hundred miles apart, and some of them as much as
four thousand miles in diameter, embracing alike in their tremendous
sweep the fragrant savannas of the sun-lit South and the eternal
solitudes of snow that mantle the ice-bound North. (Laughter.) How these
circles were produced is perhaps one of those primordial mysteries that
the most skillful paleologist will never be able to explain. (Renewed
laughter.) But the fact is, sir, Duluth is preeminently a central place,
for I am told by gentlemen who have been so reckless of their own
personal safety as to venture away into those awful regions where Duluth
is supposed to be that it is so exactly in the centre of the visible
universe that the sky comes down at precisely the same distance all
around it. (Roars of laughter.)

I find by reference to this map that Duluth is situated somewhere near
the western end of Lake Superior; but as there is no dot or other mark
indicating its exact location, I am unable to say whether it is actually
confined to any particular spot, or whether "it is just lying around
there loose." (Renewed laughter.) I really can not tell whether it is
one of those ethereal creations of intellectual frostwork, more
intangible than the rose-tinted clouds of a summer sunset,--one of those
airy exhalations of the speculator's brain, which I am told are ever
flitting in the form of towns and cities along those lines of railroad,
built with Government subsidies, luring the unwary settlers as the
mirage of the desert lures the famishing traveler on, and ever on, until
it fades away in the darkening horizon,--or whether it is a real _bona
fide_, substantial city, all "staked off," with the lots marked with
their owners' names, like that proud commercial metropolis recently
discovered on the desirable shores of San Domingo. (Laughter.) But,
however that may be, I am satisfied Duluth is there, or thereabout, for
I see it stated here on this map that it is exactly thirty-nine hundred
and ninety miles from Liverpool (laughter), th