eying the trade winds, did not surpass in real adventure
this simple expedition of those half-warrior pioneer voyageurs, Fathers
Hennepin and La Salle. The memory of their visit is yet immortal in the
local names given by them and still cherished; while the influence of
France still lingers at Detroit and many other prominent points in this
wide region, once the empire of Louis XIV.

We reached the Saut Sainte Marie about 4 P. M. of the 2d of August. Here
the River St. Mary, or the eastern outlet of Lake Superior, after a wide
course of fifty miles, gathers the multitude of its waters into a narrow
channel of less than a mile in width and length, of swift and impassable
rapids.

The grand Ship Canal, with its stone banks of about eighty feet width
and three locks, transports the largest tonnage around these rapids.
This great work was completed in 1857 by the contractors, Erastus
Corning, of New York, Fairbanks, and others, for a contract price of
seven hundred and fifty thousand acres of land, chiefly mineral, in the
State of Michigan. During our steamer's canal passage of about two
hours, we were interested by the picturesque scenery, untenanted save by
the wigwam and the bark canoe. As usual, upon the arrival of the
steamer, the long canoe, steadily held by a single boy and paddle, in a
current swift as the Niagara, shoots out into the Saut, while the
Indian, standing erect in the canoe, poising his harpoon and scrap net,
strikes or swoops in the large and delicious white fish, assured of a
capacious basketful and more, before the steamer leaves the canal.

And thus we floated onward to the bosom of great Superior.

Our course was along the St. Mary outlet, northwesterly toward White
Fish Point, on the main south shore, projecting far out into the lake.
We were hence carried miles away from sight of the famed-pictured rocks
or of any land. Tending southerly and still westward, we steamed on over
the dark waters, during a serene night, until daylight showed us the
beautiful town of Marquette. Scarce seven years old, the fruit of the
iron mining in its vicinity, it spreads its neat white cottages around
the crescent of its bay and river on an amphitheatre of hills. The rail
train destined to Bai de Noc, on Green Bay, and finished to Marquette
Mines, in all some eighteen miles, was starting upon our arrival.
Marquette, though so young, a mere group of cottages, fronting a
wilderness, from its rich mines of the best i