twenty bushels of corn on four legs?" And extending the sublime idea still further, the impassioned orator likened the 300,000,000 pounds of pork exported to Europe the previous year to "a million and a half of hogs marching across the ocean." Or, to adopt another favourite American simile, the hogs which were killed here last year, if formed into a procession in single file, would reach from New York to San Francisco, and far out into the Pacific Ocean; or from Calais to the heart of China; or from Cairo to Capetown.

Another great industry of Chicago is the timber business, in which it leads every other city on the continent. Thousands of men are engaged in it; it is estimated that a billion and a half feet of timber are handled here every year. The vast Western prairies are in the main treeless, and equally devoid of building stone; and the larger part of the lumber used in constructing their villages and farm-houses is carried out from Chicago, returning on the same railway trains which bring in their illimitable supplies of bread-stuffs. The shores of Lake Michigan mainly belong to the great Forest States of Michigan and Wisconsin, and thousands of stalwart wood-cutters are kept busy there, cutting down the primeval trees and preparing them for shipment. Down the long and rapid streams from the interior counties, over the falls, and out into the lagoons toward the lake, float vast rafts of resinous pine, which is loaded upon vessels, and sent down to the omnivorous city. A large area of prairie has been intersected with parallel ship canals, flowing into the South Branch, and with spur tracks from the great railways. The vessels unload directly alongside the tracks, and the freight vans are rapidly filled with material for cities in Dakota, churches in Pembina, or barracks among the Black Hills. The various processes of discharging, loading, and despatching are directed by telephone from the offices in the business district. The timber sent to Chicago last year would make a plank-walk ten feet wide around the earth at the Equator. The factories connected with the timber docks make enormous numbers of window-sashes, door-frames, and other builders' goods, which are sent as far as Santa Fe and Salt Lake City in the West, and even into New England in the other direction.

It was a very serious question how to furnish a supply of water to this great city, many leagues from clear running streams and crystalline lakes. For several years the water was pumped from Lake Michigan, close at hand, but this beverage was not wholly free from the contaminations of sewage, and had besides a very pronounced smell and taste. Moreover, myriads of small and lively fishes, ever ready to swim in the goblets and pails of Chicagoese families, passed easily through the service pipes. To remedy this trouble, the ingenious engineers constructed an artificial islet two miles out in the lake, where the water was deep and pure; and from the iron-bound well in its centre they built a submarine tunnel of white brick, through which the sweet water flows to the shore. There powerful pumping engines force it up into a stand-pipe of boiler-iron, 150 feet high, forming a vast column of water, whose pressure fills the mains which flow through the streets and houses. The stand-pipe is surrounded by a handsome stone tower, which commands a beautiful view over the lake and city. More than a hundred million gallons can be supplied in a single day. Another submarine brick tunnel, seven feet in diameter, was built in 1874, at a cost of £200,000, and supplies the lower part of the city through independent pumping-works. One of the most conspicuous objects in the seaward view from the marine parks is the "crib," or artificial island, through whose grated cylinders the lake-water enters the tunnels. It rises out of

deep water, and is crowned by a dwelling and a lighthouse. With characteristic modesty, the citizens speak of their water supply to all who will hear, and a little book written about the place says that "the whole civilised world was awed by the magnitude of the project." If Vienna, and Palermo, and Stuttgart, and mayhap Inverness, were not thus awed, the inference is obviously against their civilisation.

Nature made the site of Chicago a morass: man has changed it into a plateau. The necessity for providing an adequate system of drainage, that prime requisite of a modern civilised city, taxed the ingenuity and resources of the North-Western engineers, and presented a formidable obstacle to the secure growth of the city. At last it was determined to raise these leagues of streets, lined with massive buildings, twelve feet into the air, in order to form an artificial water-shed from which the sewage could flow off naturally. The swampy plain, as level as a floor, and but a trifle higher than the adjacent lake, was converted into a terrace, with streets embanked between firm retaining walls; and thousands of buildings were lifted into the air, and new foundations built under them. Immense numbers of jack-screws were placed beneath the great warehouses and shops, and lifted them upward by a slow, steady, and irresistible pressure. For a time the city was a chaos of unequal levels, broken streets, and disorganised houses; but finally order emerged, and the presumptuous scheme of the architects entered into fruition. The swamp had vanished, and larger horizons opened on every side. But the dull and tideless lagoon of the Chicago River was not adequate to meet the new conditions, and it was determined to make this remote stream a tributary of the Mississippi. An old canal which joined the Chicago estuary with the great Illinois River was widened and deepened, at a cost of millions, and the dead water of the Chicago became a flowing stream, discharging into the Illinois a hundred miles to the southward, and thence seeking the Gulf of Mexico, through the Mississippi. Ten years, however, have served to impair the value of this mode of relief, by the great increase of sewage and its rapid deposit in the canal; and powerful machinery has been placed in position, to pump the stagnant river into the lake, and to force fresh lake-water into the upper reaches of the river. This also is losing its virtue, and the indomitable engineers are making plans and surveys for a large and independent sewage canal, flowing down towards the valley of the Illinois River.

Two thousand years ago all roads pointed towards Rome, and now, in the inland empire of America, all roads point towards Chicago. It has been said, with true Western rhetoric, that the city supplies and levies tribute on all the country between Texas and Manitoba; and this wide commerce is due to the rapid and efficient construction of railways across the Plains and over the snowy passes of the Rocky Mountains. The railways, in almost all cases, preceded the population, and indicated the sites of the future cities. The North-Western line, with its scores of branches, brings to Chicago the cereals of Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Dakota; the Burlington and Quincy line crosses Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska; the Alton line runs towards Missouri and Kansas; the Illinois Central traverses the entire length of the State, and controls the routes to New Orleans and the Gulf States; and the Rock Island line connects with the routes to the Pacific. A plan of the environs of Chicago looks like an open fan-frame, whose sticks are lines of railway

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of Elgin, and many other articles intended for the use of the growing States. The trade in boots and shoes amounts to about £6,000,000 a year, and depends for its supply not only upon the agencies of Eastern manufacturers, but also on local labour, an industry which is rapidly assuming great importance.

Vauntingly as the Chicagoans exalt themselves for their enterprise, it should be remembered that nature has done a great deal of the work for them. The site of the city was the chief strategic position for commerce; and its muddy and tideless river, cutting into the black prairie, and feebly fed by the drainage of sloughs, was, as a distinguished Anglo-American writer has said, "a portal to the prairies." The Illinois and Michigan Canal was projected in 1914, and chartered in 1825, but many years were suffered to elapse before it was constructed. When certain enterprising capitalists planned a railway running westward to the Mississippi, a majority of the Chicago merchants denounced it, on the plea that it would ruin the trade of their city by distributing it along the new line, and by placing the resources of the State in the hands of Eastern capitalists. They were astonished to find that neither of their predictions was verified-that the railv ny paid heavy dividends, and that the trade and population of their town increased with marvellous rapidity. Since then, the energies of the city have been largely directed to railway construction, in the fervent hope that every grain-bearing acre over half the continent shall be brought into easy communication with the Queen City of the Prairies. The cost of these many thousands of miles of railway centring in Chicago has been less formidable than it could have been in any other country, from the fact which is expressed in the quaint saying that "a prairie railway is nothing but two ditches and a track."

The parks of Chicago are unique in American landscape-gardening, and in some respects recall the public grounds of certain of the more ancient cities of Europe. Here and there, on the confines of the municipality, are several parks of large area, each with its own peculiar attractions, and all linked together by broad avenues and drive-ways, forming a belt of verdure around the city. In some such way many European towns, such as Vienna, Florence, and Rouen, have surrounded themselves with verdant zones, replacing the grim walls, bristling with battlements and towers, which once formed their military defences. The broadening of the Chicago boulevards into the larger features of parks marks the combination of the American system of pleasure-grounds with the older system improvised by the venerable Latin and Teutonic cities from the necessities of their situations. The land thus used has cost Chicago upwards of £1,000,000, and an additional amount much in excess of that has been expended in improving the tracts thus acquired. The liberal and comprehensive scheme laid out by the burghers has not yet been carried to completion in all points, however, and miles of the avenues and park-ways still remain in an inchoate condition; for even the undaunted faith and energy of the Chicagoese cannot greatly accelerate the processes of nature in making trees, or robing their trunks with moss. Howbeit, they have gained a few years on natural laws by transplanting from distant forests trees of a great size, which kindly root themselves in the prairie soil, and grow apace. They have also constructed some very creditable hills, which make a notable display over the level prairie. In the matter of lakes, also,