of barges and steamers for the Mississippi trade. Several boats built here were plying on that river and its tributaries previous to the war. Steamers from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, have discharged cargo here. Railways connect the city with the principal towns of the State. Just above Oshkosh lie the vast timber regions of Wisconsin, which are reached by ascending the Wolf River, which is navigable for small steamers for 100 miles from the city. Owing to the proximity of so much water, the heats of the summer is much moderated at Osh

kosh, and the place has become one of the most popular summer resorts in the State.

MISCELLANY.

THE OLDEST MAN IN THE WORLD.

Joseph Crele died in Caledonia, a little town in Wisconsin, on the 27th of January, 1866. He was probably the oldest man in the world, being, at the time of his death, 141 years of age. He was born of French parents, in 1725, at a French trading-post, which has since grown into the present city of Detroit. The baptismal register of the Catholic Church in that city settles this fact positively. He lived in Wisconsin for about 100 years. He was at one time a French soldier, and bore arms at Braddock's defeat. He married in New Orleans in 1754, when nearly 30. A few years after his marriage, he settled at Prairie du Chien, while Wisconsin was still a province of France. Before the Revolutionary war, he was employed to carry letters between Prairie du Chien and Green Bay. A few years ago, he was called as a witness in the Circuit Court of Wisconsin, to give testimony relating to events that had transpired 80 years before. For some years before his death, the old gentleman resided with a daughter by his third wife at Caledonia. He was 69 when this child was born. Until 1864, Mr. Crele was as hearty and active as most men of 70. He could walk several miles without fatigue, and frequently chopped wood for the family use.

He cast his first vote for Washington, and after that never failed to vote at every election. He had no bad habits, except that he was a constant smoker. In person, he was rather above the medium height, spare in flesh, but showing evidences of having been in his prime-100 years ago-a man of powerful physical organization. During the last few years of his life, he experienced a haunting sense of loneliness, and would frequently exclaim with sadness that he feared Death had forgotten him.

THE State of Minnesota is situated between 43° 30′ and 49° N. latitude, and between 89° 30′ and 97° W. longitude. It is bounded on the north by British America, on the east by Lake Superior and Wisconsin, on the south by Iowa, and on the west by Dakota Territory.

TOPOGRAPHY.

The State Government has recently published an excellent description of Minnesota, prepared by Col. Girart Hewitt, of St. Paul. We take the following from it:

"Although Minnesota is not a mountainous country by any means, its general elevation gives it all the advantages of one, without its objectionable features. Being equidistant from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, situated on an elevated plateau, and with a system of lakes and rivers ample for an empire, it has a peculiar climate of its own, possessed by no other State. The general surface of the greater part of the State is even and undulating, and pleasantly diversified with rolling prairies, vast belts of timber, oak openings, numerous lakes and streams, with their accompanying meadows, waterfalls, wooded ravines, and lofty bluffs, which impart variety, grandeur and picturesque beauty to its scenery.

"The Mississippi River, 2400 miles long, which drains a larger region of country than any stream on the globe, with the exception of

the Amazon, rises in Lake Itasca, in the northern part of Minnesota, and flows southeasterly through the State 797 miles, 134 of which forms its eastern boundary. It is navigable for large boats to St. Paul, and above the Falls of St. Anthony for smaller boats for about 150 miles farther. The season of navigation has opened as early as the 25th of March, but usually opens from the first to the middle of April, and closes between the middle of November and the first of December. In 1865 and 1866, steamboat excursions took place on the first of December, from St. Paul, and the river remained open several days longer; in 1867 until December 1st. The principal towns and cities on the Mississippi in Minnesota, are, Winona, Wabashaw, Lake City, Red Wing, Hastings, St. Paul, Minneapolis, St. Anthony, Anoka, Dayton, Monticello, St. Cloud, Sauk Rapids, Little Falls, Watab. The Minnesota River, the source of which is among the Coteau des Prairies, in Dakota Territory, flows from Big Stone Lake, on the western boundary of the State, a distance of nearly 500 miles, through the heart of the southwestern part of the State, and empties into the Mississippi at Fort Snelling, 5 miles above St. Paul.

It is navigable as high up as the Yellow Medicine, 238 miles above its mouth during good stages of water. Its principal places are Shakopee, Chaska, Carver, Belle Plaine, Henderson, Le Sueur, Traverse des Sioux, St. Peter, Mankato, and New Ulm. The St. Croix River, rising in Wisconsin, near Lake Superior, forms about 130 miles of the eastern boundary of the State. It empties into the Mississippi nearly opposite Hastings, and is navigable to Taylor's Fall, about 50 miles. It penetrates the pineries, and furnishes immense water-power along its course. The principal places on it are Stillwater and Taylor's Falls. The Red River rises in Lake Traverse, and flows northward, forming the western boundary of the State from Big Stone Lake to the British possessions, a distance of 380 miles. It is navigable from Breckenridge, at the mouth of the Bois de Sioux River, to Hudson's Bay; the Saskatchewan, a tributary of the Red River, is also said to be a navigable stream, thus promising an active commercial trade from this vast region when it shall have become settled up, via the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, which connects the navigable waters of the Red River with those of the Mississippi. Among the more important of the numerous small streams are Rum River, valuable for lumbering; Vermilion River, furnishing extensive water-power, and possessing some of the finest cascades in the United States; the Crow, Blue Earth Root, Sauk, Le Sueur, Zumbro, Cottonwood, Long Prairie, Red Wood, Waraju, Pejuta Ziza, Mauja, Wakau, Buffalo, Wild Rice, Plum, Sand Hill, Clear Water, Red Lake, Thief Black, Red Cedar, and Des Moines rivers; the St. Louis River, a large stream flowing into Lake Superior, navigable for 20 miles from its lake outlet, and furnishing a water-power at its falls said to be equal to that of the Falls of the Mississippi at St. Anthony, and many others, besides all the innumerable hosts of first and secondary tributaries to all the larger streams."

Lake Superior washes the eastern boundary of the State for a distance of 167 miles, and has several fine harbors. Minnesota is thickly studded with small lakes, which abound in fish and game, and give a rich beauty to the landscape. Professor Maury says that Minnesota is the best watered State in the Union, although one of the farthest from the sea, owing its abundant summer rains to the presence of these lakes.

MINERALS.

Iron is abundant along the shores of Lake Superior. Copper is found in small quantities. Coal and red pipe-clay are the other mine

rals. Gold quartz has been found in Carlton county, and gold and silver about 80 miles northwest of Lake Superior.

CLIMATE.

Minnesota has been so strongly recommended as a resort for invalids, that the following remarks upon the climate, taken from the work of Colonel Hewitt, will be found interesting.

"The assertion that the climate of Minnesota is one of the healthiest in the world, may be broadly and confidently made. It is sustained by the almost unanimous testimony of thousands of invalids who have sought its pure and bracing air, and recovered from consumption and other diseases after they had been given up as hopeless by their home physicians; it is sustained by the experience of its inhabitants for twenty years; and it is sustained by the published statistics of mortality in the different States. Minnesota is entirely exempt from malaria, and consequently the numerous diseases known to arise from it, such as chills and fever, autumnal fevers, ague cake or enlarged spleen, enlargement of the liver, etc., dropsy, diseases of the kidneys, affections of the eye, and various bilious diseases, and derangements of the stomach and bowels, although sometimes arising from other causes, are often due wholly to malarious agency, and are only temporarily relieved by medicine, because the patient is constantly exposed to the malarious influence which generates them. Enlargement of the liver and spleen is very common in southern and southwestern States. We are not only free from those ailments, but by coming to Minnesota, often without any medical treatment at all, patients speedily recover from this class of diseases; the miasmatic poison being soon eliminated from the system, and not being exposed to its further inception, the functions of health are gradually resumed. Diarrhoea and dysentery are not so prevalent as in warmer latitudes, and are of a milder type. Pneumonia and typhoid fever are very seldom met with, and then merely as sporadic cases. Diseases of an epidemic character never have been known to prevail here. Even that dreadful scourge, diphtheria, which, like a destroying angel, swept through portions of the country, leaving desolation in its train, passed us by with scarce a grave to mark its course. The diseases common to infancy and childhood partake of the same mild character, and seldom prove fatal.' This is the language of Mrs. Colburn, an authoress, and the experience of physicians corroborates this opinion. That dreadful scourge of the human family, the cholera, is alike unknown