An elevator company has been organized by several gentlemen in Boston and Philadelphia, and the necessary buildings are now going up. The wheat will be taken directly from the cars into the elevator, and discharged into the fleet of propellers running to Cleveland, Buffalo, and Ogdensburg, already arranged for this Lake Superior trade.
The region around the western end of the Lake has resources for the development of a varied industry. The wooded section extends from Central Wisconsin westward to the Leaf Hills beyond the Mississippi, and northward to Lake Winnipeg. This is to be the lumbering region of the Northwest, for the manufacture of all agricultural implements,—reapers, mowers, harvesters, ploughs, drills, seed-sowers, wagons, carriages, carts, and furniture,—besides furnishing lumber for fencing, for railroad and building purposes.
Upon the St. Louis River there is exhaustless water-power,—a descent of five hundred feet, with a stream always pouring an abundant flood. Its source is among the lakes of northern Minnesota, which, being filled to overflowing by the rains of spring and early summer, become great reservoirs. With such a supply of water there is no locality more favorably situated for the manufacture of every variety of domestic articles. Undoubtedly the water-power will be largely employed for flouring-mills. The climate is admirably adapted to the grinding of grain. The falls being so near the lake, there will be cheap transportation eastward to Buffalo, Cleveland, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, while westward are the prairies, easily reached by the railroads.
The geological formation on the north side of Lake Superior is granite, but as we follow up the St. Louis River we come upon a ridge of slate. It forms the backbone of the divide between the lake and the Mississippi River.
A quarry has been opened from which slates of a quality not inferior to those of Vermont are obtained, and so far as we know it is the only quarry in the Northwest. It is almost invaluable, for Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, western Minnesota, and Dakota have very little wood. Shingles are costly, but here is abundant material to cover the roofs of the millions of houses that are yet to rise upon the prairies.
This slate formation is thus referred to by Thomas Clark, State Geologist, in his Report to the Governor of Minnesota, dated December, 1864 (pp. 29, 30):—
"These slates are found in all degrees of character, from the common indurated argillaceous fissile to the highly metamorphosed and even trappous type. The working of these slates demands the attention of builders; their real value is economically of more importance to the prairie and sparsely timbered valley of the Mississippi than any other deposit in the State's possession on the lake. The annual draught of hundreds of millions of lumber upon the pine forests of the St. Croix and Upper Mississippi and tributaries will exhaust those regions before the close of this century. The trustees of our young Commonwealth are emphatically admonished to encourage and foster the working of these slates, and to bring them into use at the earliest time possible. A hundred square feet of dressed slates at the quarries of Vermont, New York, and Canada are worth from one and a half to two dollars; the weight ranges from four to six hundred pounds, or about four squares to the ton. A ton of this roofing may be transported from the St. Louis quarry to the Mississippi, by railway, at three dollars, and thence by river to the landings as far down as St. Louis or Cairo; but the article may be at all points in this State accessible by boats or railway, at an average cost of fifteen dollars per ton, or, at most, four dollars per square,—little, if any, more than pine shingles; the former as good for a century as the latter is for a decade. The supply of these cliffs is literally inexhaustible; if one fourth of this slate area in the St. Louis Valley proves available,—and doubtless one half will,—it will yield one thousand millions of tons.
"The demand for this slate at ten roofs to the square mile, and for forty thousand square miles, would be one million of tons, or one thousandth part of the material. The annual demand for slates in the Mississippi Valley may be reasonably estimated at one hundred thousand tons, an exportable product of two hundred thousand dollars, besides the element of a permanent income to the railways and water-craft of the State of a half-million of dollars annually."
To-day the country along the St. Louis is a wilderness. Climb the hills, and look upon the scene, and think of the coming years.
"Thou shalt look
Upon the green and rolling forest tops,
And down into the secrets of the glens
And streams, that with their bordering thickets strive
To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze at once,
Here on white villages, and tilth and herds,
And swarming roads, and there on solitudes
That only hear the torrent, and the wind,
And eagle's shriek."