THE GRAND PORTAL, LAKE SUPERIOR.
GRAND PORTALS, FROM THE LAKE.
The Grand Portal is the doorway or entrance to a splendid cave in the cliff of the Pictured Rocks. It is in the form of an immense vaulted chamber, with a ceiling nearly one hundred feet high, which has been carved out of the yellow limestone by the restless waves as they are driven in and out by the force of the winds. The sides of the cave are fretted and worn into all sorts of fantastic shapes, presenting a remarkable and exceedingly interesting spectacle. The view from the portal, embracing the adjacent cliffs and a vast expanse of rolling waters, is grand and sublime.
THE ICE PALACE AT ST. PAUL IN 1888.—It is hard to believe that this majestic structure, with its frowning battlements, massive walls and wrinkled visage of war, is composed wholly of transparent blocks of ice. It has more the appearance of an impregnable castle, which, outliving the scars and bruises of mediæval battles and the ravages of time, has come on down into our modern and better era as an example of the architectural ability and requirements of the dark and bloody days of former ages. But it is a castle which requires no resounding thump of the battering-ram or crash of cannon-ball to shatter its walls and break its turrets, for they vanish and melt away into imperceptible vapors under the warm kisses of the virgin spring sun.