The comme of the wet at needs that of any other any in the Great Lakes, although Vivaike. Det it. Chvaland. Bafil, and Treat also are very large and important shipping points. The number vť vessels, amiving here anmlly is nearly 12. 09, with a sionage of £ 00 00 : and the deannes are of equi magnitude. The Chico River about fety mos baz At de mille fra to north the strean books into two fieks, ench almost at mght angles with the part dowing into the like, and the mvgable chanmels of these, benened and widened at e nsiderable est, firm a mat tà, six miles long, 15y feet whún and ten to fifteen feet deep, and nearly pamle with Lake Michigan. The mile-length of the main stram, 5 wing eastward into the lake, & vides the easterly part of the eity ins, the tv, great divisios known as the North Side and the South Sile: and the renna ning waris bring to the wetvici, ars the tw. Firiks, are called the West Side. The thirty-six buizes with er ss the men within the city lims are sen e estructed © piv tal piers Felt in the centre of the channel, in cober that resse's can aw them easily. Bit & early unle ken is the enment of emnere Bowing al ng these tam v waters, that emanati a between the diferent parts of the city was often estoffe long pemods, and the strets leading to the bridges were blockaded by lines of delayed carmagns and people. This grat and growing evil was happily relieved by the tunnels under the nver, the one eczeeting the South Side and the in Iwk, the other from the North Sile to the Sath Side in 1871. Each f these evntains & alle radways fe vehicles, and a bead sidewalk for pedestrians, and iskere ent will level. The booth of these tunnels is a mething less than a third of a mile In edier times, the only e avevibes, deniss the river were the bark-cances of the Aftervals. Bating Imins were belt, but these excited the ire of the sails, 79 VIEWS IN CHICAGO. 1, Court-House; 2, State Street N., from Madison Street; 3, Interior of Chamber of Commerce; Tuz abivere & UN ES tambory, se zadnad, fumed by a Goremment brainte ore than a mile bag. Mia anmuture breaks the main fee of the bary giles wilA the anchorage of the monk of the mire. A: the getoonse, to guide in belived resics to the Lic. The Back and fumb apon thee Inland was are manned by a hardy and memorina rue of marter, for the frequency of string giles makes navigation often d Re- and tangerine, and there is alware a leesebore not for away. Many of the vessels calize these file was an koors 25 anallen," being so einstructed as to carry eye argvar prestbe, amount of fight with wild thy en pass through the Welland Catal. These awkward aria labour haslly in a rogh set, and sometimes founder in the The lake brate Street, which runs parallel with Lake Michigan, is the chief thoroughfare of the city—the Westem Rue de Kiroli, or, as the New Yorkers, with a fine mingling of modesty and patrimage, way, "The Broadway of Chicago." Here are the chief commercial buildings and hotela, and the most brillant shops for retail trade. The sombre brownstone and granite, the dark-red bricks of the Eastern cities, are replaced here by the golden, or cream-coloured, marble, which is quarried about fourteen miles from the city-so soft when first opened as to be easily cut with a hatchet or chisel, yet hardening rapidly on exposure to the air. The bricks, too, are of a rich straw-colour, insomuch that another city of the North-west (Milwaukee,, which is mainly built of this material, is widely known by the sobriquet of "The Cream City." The Chamber of Commerce is a large and stately stone building near the centre of the city, and on the site of an earlier building of a similar character, destroyed in the Great Fire. The main hall (145 feet long) is adorned with a series of brilliant frescoes, representing the trade of the city, its destruction in the fire, and the triumphant rebuilding. Here the Board of Trade holds its sessions, from eleven until one o'clock daily, and the scene presents the appearance (and the sound) of a pitched battle, between walls and without cavalry. Terrible as is the uproar of the New York Stock Exchange, it is as the placidity of a Quaker meeting when compared with the maniacal struggles seen in this hall, where hundreds of eager capitalists are gambling with the bread of a continent. Here New York and Boston, London and Liverpool are bidding by the sharp rat-tat-tat of the telegraph; local speculators are endeavouring to elevate or depress the market-rates; all manner of combinations are formed, and fortunes are won and lost in a few hours. It is the focus of the main primary grain-market of the world, and the transactions of a day here may affect the price of a loaf of bread a thousand leagues away. The grain is stored in the elevators, in distant parts of the town, its grade determined by the State Inspector; and the purchaser of a dozen or a hundred car-loads pays his cheque to the seller and takes a receipt for the quantity bought, which he can draw at any time from the elevator specified. And so it happens that one may ramble about the city for weeks and not see a sign of the grain which gives it life, or form any idea, from observation, of the magnitude of the traffic. It is natural that this great capital of the nomads of the West should surpass (as it does) any other cities of equal size, wherever they may be found, in the extent, variety, and splendour of its restaurants. Scores of devices, as yet unheard of in Europe, are employed to serve the comfort of their guests; and the discomforts of homelessness are in part offset by luxuries surpassing the wildest fancies of Sybaris. Even the sturdy republicans of the Plains call these colossal hostelries palaces, and boldly challenge a comparison between them and the royal houses of Europe. The Palmer House, a vast fireproof building, containing more than 700 rooms and halls, cost £600,000; the Grand Pacific Hotel, covering an entire square, cost £150,000; and the Tremont, the Sherman, and others are hardly inferior in size. The Court-House and City Hall, the Hótel de Ville of the Prairie metropolis, is the grandest and most imposing building in the State, erected at a cost not far short of £1,000,000. It is in that modern French Renaissance architecture which the Americans have used so freely during recent years for their mammoth public buildings; and exhibits great store of Corinthian columns, allegorical statuary, and elaborate friezes, the entire edifice being constructed of Illinois marble and Maine granite. Over the centre a tower was to have been built, whose design called for an altitude of 376 feet. It would not only have flattered the civic pride, but might have become a landmark for vessels far down the lake, bound inward to the land of corn and plenty. Unfortunately, however, the city engaged to erect one half of the building, and the county the other half. The latter wanted a dome, and nearly completed the half which rested on county territory; but the city declined to build the other half, and out of this misunderstanding the most amusing law-suits have arisen. The building erected in Chicago for the reception of the post-office, customs, sub-treasury, and national courts, is a huge quadrangular pile in Venetian Romanesque architecture, richly ornamented, and surmounted by eight heavy towers. Already this mountain of stone has cost more than £1,000,000; and it does not appear that the Government offices will have excess of room, so great is the postal business at this point. But little more than forty years ago, there was only one mail a week to Chicago, which was brought by an Indian half-breed from the little port of Niles, in Eastern Michigan. As this lonely horseman rode through the unbroken forests and over the silent prairies, for day after day, he could not have dreamed of the matchless development of that business which he so easily transacted alone. The halfbreed's saddle-bags contained the seeds of empire. Importations from Europe pay duties at the Chicago Customs amounting to nearly £100,000 yearly. They are chiefly in various kinds of dry goods and French silks. Large quantities of tin-plate are brought hither from England, and after being made up into ware, are re-shipped to the mother country, whose dealers are clearly undersold by the Chicago agents. The Lake Park lies to the eastward of the centre of the city, and is a long and narrow |