This BOOK may be kept out TWO WEEKS 
 ONLY, and is subject to a fine of FIVE 
 CENTS a day thereafter. It was taken out on 
 the day indicated below: 
 
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1 The Companion Library, j 
 
 Number 14. 
 
 PERRY MASON & COMPANY, 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
♦♦The Companion Library 
 
 Is a collection of stories, travel-sketches and descriptive articles, complete, 
 exact, and so interesting as to meet the need of all who want "a 
 book for the leisure hour." It is made up from the works of some of the 
 best writers for The Youth's Companion. 
 
 The Library comprises the following volumes, each containing sixty- 
 four pages, illustrated and bound uniform with this book: 
 
 No. I. Stories of Purpose : Bravery, Tact and Fidelity. 
 
 No. 2. Glimpses of Europe : Travel and Description. 
 
 No. 3. The American Tropics : Mexico to the Equator. \ 
 No- 4. Sketches of the Orient: Scenes in Asia. 
 No. 5. Old Ocean : Winds, Currents and Perils. 
 No. 6. I/ife in the Sea: Fish and Fishing. 
 
 No. 7. Bits of Bird I/ife : Habits, Nests and Eggs. 
 
 No. 8. Our IVittle Neighbors: Insects, Small Animals. 
 No. 9. At Home in the Forest: Wild Animals. 
 No. ID. In Alaska : Animals and Resources. 
 No. II. Among the Rockies : Scenery and Travel. 
 No. 12. In the Southwest: Semi-Tropical Regions. 
 No. 13. On the Plains : Pioneers and Ranchmen. 
 
 No. 14. The Great Lake Country : A Land of Progress. 
 No. 15. On the Gulf: Attractive Regions of Contrasts. 
 No. 16. Along the Atlantic : New York to Georgia. 
 
 No. 17. In New ^England: The Home of the Puritans. 
 
 No. 18. Stories of Success: Skill, Courage and Perseverance. 
 No. 19. Stories of Kindness : Examples for Rich and Poor. 
 No. ao. Student Stories: Life in School and College. 
 
 Price 10 Cents Each, Post-paid. 
 
 PERRY MASON & COMPANY, Publishers, 
 201 Columbus Avenue. BOSTON, MASS. 
 
...THE... 
 
 Great Lake Country. 
 
 The Companion Library. 
 
 Number Fourteen. . 
 
 SELECTIONS 
 From The Youth's Companion. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 HARNESSING NIAGARA CURTIS BROWN. 
 
 THE ST. CLAIR TUNNEl H. G. PROUT. 
 
 WINTER-FISHING ON SAGINAW BAY ... CHARLES ELLIS. 
 
 DOG-SLEDGES IN MICHIGAN .... MERCIA ABBOTT KEITH. 
 THE ISHPEMING DOG-RACE ..... HORACE J. STEVENS. 
 A WISCONSIN SKATE-SAIL ... . A. W. WHITNEY. 
 
 A TRIP TO LAKE SUPERIOR . . SAMUEL W. COZZENS. 
 
 HOP-PICKING IN CENTRAL NEW YORK . . JOHN H. ADAMS. 
 
 CHARCOAL-BURNERS E. B. FlNDLAY. 
 
 NATURAL GAS KIRK MUNROE. 
 
 AN OIL-COUNTRY CRATER EARLE H. EATON. 
 
 THE MOUND-BUILDERS PROF. H. W. HENSHAW. 
 
 MAMMOTH CAVE . . H. C. HOVEY. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 l6 
 20 
 24 
 28 
 
 31 
 
 35 
 38 
 41 
 46 
 50 
 57 
 
 Copyright, 1898. 
 PERRY MASON & COMPANY, 
 
 Boston, Mass, 
 
Harnessing Niagara. 
 
 If you imagine a line of very strong horses, harnessed 
 tandem, extending eight hundred and fifty miles, from Boston 
 almost to Chicago, all pulling steadily, you will get some idea 
 of the amount of power which it is expected will be taken from 
 Niagara Falls by water-wheels, and distributed chiefly in the 
 form of electricity. 
 
 Between three and four million dollars have been spent in 
 digging the tunnel and wheel-pit from which the first instalment 
 of the power is supplied, and much more money will be used to 
 develop the full four hundred and fifty thousand horse-power 
 for which the plans provide. 
 
 No one can tell at present just how far this enormous force 
 will be sent ; but some of the best engineers believe that it will 
 be made to turn mill-wheels, light streets and even light and 
 heat houses throughout the greater part of New York State, 
 a large territory in Canada, and perhaps here and there in 
 neighboring states. 
 
 Yet the great cataract will not be robbed of much of its 
 strength ; for it is estimated that the horse-power of Niagara 
 Falls is nearly five million, nine hundred thousand — the greatest 
 that nature has concentrated at any one place on the globe 
 except, possibly, the yet unmeasured Victoria Falls of the 
 Zambesi. It has been said that all the coal mined in the world 
 would barely supply the steam-pumps which would be needed to 
 pump back the water that flows over the Falls. 
 
 When the water required to create four hundred and fifty 
 thousand horse-power is drawn from the river above the Falls 
 and sent to the gorge below by a short cut through tunnels, the 
 great cataract will be lowered about seven inches only, and 
 the loss will hardly be noticed. 
 
 Plans for using Niagara Falls to run machinery had been 
 considered for half a century, but it was not until i886 that the 
 
4 
 
 HAKNK.S,SING NIAGARA. 
 
 necessary permission to use Niagara water was asked and 
 obtained from the New York Legislature. Four years later 
 money for the undertaking had been supplied by capitalists and 
 banking houses. 
 
 An International Niagara Commission, under the presidency 
 of Sir William Thomson, of England, now Lord Kelvin, was 
 
 formed to invite the lead- 
 ing engineers of Europe 
 and America to submit 
 plans for harnessing the 
 cataract without marring 
 its beauty. 
 
 Twenty-six plans were 
 submitted, and from these 
 the company's engineers 
 devised the designs finally 
 adopted. 
 
 On October 4, 1890, 
 the first spadeful of earth 
 was dug, and from that 
 time the work was hurried 
 with all possible speed. 
 Told in the simplest way, 
 the undertaking consists of a number of deep holes in the 
 ground, one much larger than the rest, each with water-wheels 
 at the bottom. The water from the Niagara River is carried 
 to these pits by a canal, led down to the wheels in pipes 
 and then off to the lower river through a tunnel which connects 
 all the pits. 
 
 All who have visited Niagara will remember that the river 
 turns almost at a right angle at the Falls. The tunnel, stretching 
 from a point near the river a mile and a half up-stream from 
 the American Fall to a point about one thousand feet below the 
 American Fall, forms, roughly, the hypothenuse of a right- 
 angled triangle, the Falls being at the right angle. 
 
 The canal through which water from Niagara flows to the 
 
HAKNKSvSING NIAGARA. 
 
 5 
 
 tunnel leads in from the river about two thousand feet. Along 
 the sides are a score of inlets controlled by massive gates. Ten 
 inlets open through the thick masonry which lines the main 
 wheel-pit, and each leads into a steel pipe called a penstock, 
 about as large around as an ordinary street-car. 
 
 The penstocks run straight down one hundred and forty feet 
 and discharge into a turbine, consisting of a pair of water-wheels, 
 whose shaft extends upward beside the penstock into the 
 power-house built directly over the pit. 
 
 When one of the gates is raised by a delicate electrical 
 apparatus which controls it, water from the canal pours in and 
 flows down the penstock, or water-pipe, pressing into the turbine 
 with a force of five thousand horse-power. After passing through 
 the wheels the water travels on from a discharge tunnel at the 
 end of the wheel-pit out into the main tunnel. 
 
 The largest pit, which was completed on the first day of 
 January, 1894, is one hundred and seventy-eight feet deep, 
 twenty-one feet wide, and one hundred and forty feet long. At 
 present there is room for only four penstocks. 
 
 It is not easy to imagine a hol'e pulled up out of the ground, 
 but the masonry that lines this wheel-pit is so thick and strong 
 that if the pit could be pulled up, its walls probably would stand 
 firm like a giant chimney. The chief interest lies in this main 
 wheel-pit, for it is here that electricity is to be generated for 
 distribution through- 
 out the neighboring 
 country. 
 
 The smaller pits 
 are to supply water- 
 power direct to the 
 various mills that will 
 cluster around the in- 
 let canal. The turbines at the bottom of one of these smaller pits 
 are now turning the wheels of the largest paper-mill in the world. 
 
 The tunnel itself simply carries off the water that has done 
 its appointed work. Yet its construction has been the most 
 
 Profile of the Tunne 
 
6 
 
 HARNEvSSING NIAGARA. 
 
 difficult part of the whole undertaking, keeping many hundred 
 men busy more than two years, costing in round numbers a 
 million and a quarter dollars ; and worse yet, costing twenty- 
 seven lives, through various accidents. 
 
 The tunnel slopes gently down from the bottom of the 
 wheel-pit to the portal, just beyond the new suspension bridge, 
 
 a mile and a third 
 distant, passing be- 
 neath the busiest part 
 of the city of Niagara 
 Falls and almost 
 T- directly under the Central 
 
 Railroad Station, where most 
 visitors to the Falls alight. 
 The tunnel is shaped like a 
 horseshoe ; it is twenty-one feet 
 high, eighteen feet and ten inches 
 across the broadest part and nearly 
 four feet narrower at the bottom. 
 Its whole length was blasted and 
 ' ---- -- through limestone rock and 
 
 - ' ' " shale, of which enough was taken 
 
 The Outlet. make twenty acres of valu- 
 
 able real estate, when dumped along the shore of the river. 
 This rocky river-bed, two hundred feet underground, is lined 
 with from four to six rings of brick especially prepared to resist 
 wear and tear by the water. 
 
 The outlet from which the water flows into the river looks 
 from above like a commonplace black hole down by the water's 
 edge. Yet it is said to be one of the most solid pieces of 
 masonry ever built. It rests on a ledge of sandstone forty feet 
 below the level of the river, and is built up as strongly as steel 
 and stone and cement can make it. 
 
 It is well that it should be strong, for it must withstand for 
 many years to come the action of the current without, which 
 boils and foams as it swirls down from the rocks below the 
 
HARNKSSING NIAGARA. 
 
 7 
 
 Falls, as well as the tearing rush of the waters within, which 
 pour down a steep incline at the end of the tunnel. 
 
 The shaft from each turbine down in the main wheel-pit 
 extends up through the floor of the power-house, to connect 
 with the revolving part of a dynamo capable of converting 
 five thousand horse-power into electricity, which can be sent 
 easily over wires for many miles in any direction, and at the 
 end of its journey can be changed back into the original form 
 of power. 
 
 The process is a good deal like sending money by mail. 
 Silver dollars could not be carried easily in a letter, but they 
 may be exchanged for a money-order which, at the end of its 
 journey, can be changed back into silver dollars. 
 
 Each dynamo has its own water-gate, water-pipe, water-wheel 
 and shaft, forming practically separate and independent power- 
 plants good for five thousand 
 horse-power each. For a short 
 distance, at least, the electric 
 current is to be sent out on 
 underground wires carried in 
 a subway big enough to walk 
 through without stooping. 
 
 When it is sent to greater 
 distances, however, it prob- 
 ably will be carried on poles, 
 like the trolley wires for 
 electric street-cars. 
 
 As the use of electricity 
 could not be very great at 
 first, the wheel-pit was com- 
 pleted to turn four turbines 
 capable of producing twenty 
 thousand horse - power. As 
 more power is needed the extension of the wheel-pit will make 
 room for six more turbines, until fifty thousand horse-power 
 can be generated there, and the tunnel is filled to half its 
 
8 
 
 HARNESSING NIAGARA. 
 
 capacity. The other half is needed for the smaller water- 
 power pits that will empty into it. 
 
 The company has secured the right to dig another tunnel of 
 the same size as the present one, and with wheel-pits to match. 
 
 Beside this, practically the same company has bought 
 permission from the Canadian government to dig two wheel-pits 
 and tunnels on the Canada side, solely for the generation of 
 electricity. The plan is to build the first of these wheel-pits 
 and the power-house to match close to the brink of the Horseshoe 
 Fall, at the foot of the high bank directly underneath the Falls 
 View Station. The tunnel will slope down from the bottom of 
 the pit four hundred feet to the river below the fall. 
 
 Each of the Canadian tunnels is to carry away the water 
 needed to generate one hundred and twenty-five thousand 
 horse-power. The total capacity of the plants to be built on 
 both sides of the river will be, therefore, four hundred and fifty 
 thousand horse-power. 
 
 The chief uncertainty about electricity is that it seems to 
 leak from the wires. The longer the journey it makes the 
 more of it is lost by the way, and consequently the more it 
 will cost. The expense of sending it by wire or subway is 
 also heavy. A great deal depends on this question of price. 
 How far can electricity be sent without a loss that will make 
 its cost equal to steam-power ? Upon that question depends 
 whether Niagara's power shall be used only near by the great 
 cataract, or whether it shall be sent broadcast. Inventions 
 have been made recently which, it is believed, will make it 
 possible to carry electricity a great distance without a loss 
 large enough to make its cost equal that of coal. 
 
 Nikola Tesla, the brilliant young electrician who astonished 
 scientists by proving that an electrical current can be created 
 which will pass through the upper air without wires to conduct 
 it, says, " The current from Niagara Falls can be taken as far 
 as New York city without great loss, and I believe that before 
 long we shall be able to take it any distance." 
 
 Curtis Brown. 
 
The St. Clair Tunnel. 
 
 No other profession is so much like war as civil engineering. 
 The chief engineer, like the general, must make his plans with 
 the greatest patience and care. He must know the exact facts 
 and guess at nothing. When he cannot avoid guessing, he 
 must weigh all the chances with careful judgment ; and when 
 he has done his best he may meet sudden and unlooked-for 
 emergencies, in which all his care will not save his work from 
 ruin. 
 
 Of all engineering work that which is least certain is 
 driving tunnels under rivers or other bodies of water. Usually 
 the tunnel must be driven in clay or river silt or sand and 
 gravel, with more or less loose rock and boulders. The trouble 
 is to keep a tight roof, and, if the material is very soft, to keep 
 the tunnel itself in shape. 
 
 The St. Clair Tunnel is one of the most remarkable in the 
 world. The tunnel is six thousand feet long, about a mile and 
 one-seventh. Including the open cuttings on each end, the 
 excavation extends eleven thousand six hundred feet, about 
 two miles and one-fifth. 
 
 The tunnel was driven through blue clay. Above flows a 
 swift river, forty feet deep. Between the tunnel and the water 
 are from fifteen to twenty feet of clay, sand and gravel. 
 
 The novelty and magnitude of this work, the difficulties 
 met, and the boldness and speed with which it was done, have 
 made it a matter of great interest to engineers all over the 
 world. 
 
 The Grand Trunk Railway crosses the St. Clair River 
 from Sarnia, Ontario, to Port Huron, Michigan. On the St. 
 Clair River there is a shipping commerce five times as great as 
 that which passes through the Suez Canal. 
 
 The river is from half to three-quarters of a mile wide, and 
 the current flows at from six to eight miles an hour. 
 
THE vST. CI.AIR TUNNKL. 
 
 II 
 
 For many years trains were taken across on great ferry- 
 boats. This was comfortable enough for passengers, but it 
 wasted precious time ; the boats were expensive to keep up 
 and to operate, and in winter," when the river is full of floating 
 ice, the delays and cost were serious. 
 
 To carry the tunnel through clay, with occasional pockets 
 of gravel and quicksand and with a great river flowing only 
 fifteen feet overhead, and to protect the workmen from accidents, 
 was a difficult problem. 
 
 It was decided to do the work inside of steel tubes, called 
 shields, which should be pushed ahead as the work advanced, 
 and to line the tunnel with rings of cast iron close behind the 
 shields when they were driven forward. In this way the danger 
 of collapse of the tunnel would be avoided, and it would be 
 practically finished as fast as it was dug. 
 
 One shield was started in from the Michigan side and one 
 from the Canadian side. Each of them was a tube twenty-one 
 feet and six inches in diameter, and fifteen feet three inches 
 long. It was made of steel plates one inch thick. The plates 
 at the forward end of the tube were sharpened to a cutting 
 "edge all around the circumference. 
 
 This tube was stiffened by steel plates put in up and down 
 and crosswise, dividing the inside into square cells. Five feet 
 from the back end of the tube was a partition, also of steel 
 plates, in which were two square doors near the bottom. The 
 men worked in the front part of the tube, cutting down the 
 clay and throwing it back through the doors. Then it was 
 loaded into small cars and hauled away to the rear on a narrow 
 railroad track, by mules or horses. There was a second track 
 to bring in the empty cars. 
 
 As fast as the shield went forward the tunnel was lined with 
 rings of cast iron. Each of these rings was twenty-one feet in 
 diameter and eighteen inches long, measured in the direction 
 of the length of the tunnel. The ring, being of less diameter 
 than the shield, could enter the rear of it ; and so there was 
 always a complete tube of steel and iron from the face of 
 
12 
 
 THK ST. CLAIR TUNNEL. 
 
 the clay where the men were digging to the entrance of the 
 tunnel. 
 
 Each iron ring is made of thirteen pieces of cast iron, 
 each piece weighing about half a ton. The pieces are bolted 
 together, and each completed ring is bolted to the one behind 
 it so that the tunnel is lined with a continuous tube of iron two 
 inches thick and water-tight. The cast-iron lining weighs 
 about twenty-seven thousand tons. The shields were pushed 
 forward by hydraulic jacks. The hydraulic jack is a cylinder 
 into which water is forced ; and the water, entering, pushes 
 a piston just as the steam in a locomotive cylinder pushes the 
 piston to one end or the other of that cylinder. 
 
 The hydraulic jack can be made to give power. Each shield 
 had twenty-four of these jacks in the rear end, placed in a circle 
 close to the shell, or outside plates of the tube, and also so placed 
 that when their pistons were thrust out they would push against 
 the cast-iron ring forming the lining of the tunnel. 
 
 They could push with a force of three thousand tons — a 
 power sufficient to lift up bodily a large ocean steamship. This 
 tremendous power was found to be twice as much as was needed 
 to force the shield forward into the clay. 
 
 At each step the shield was pushed along eighteen or twenty 
 inches. Then a new ring was added to the tunnel lining ; the 
 clay was cut down as far as it could be done safely, and carried 
 away. Then the shield was pushed forward another step. 
 
 This was all very simple so long as the work was under 
 the dry land ; but when it reached out under the river it was 
 necessary to find some way to keep the water out. Otherwise, 
 when seams of loose material were struck, water would have 
 poured in and flooded the tunnel, and stopped the work entirely. 
 To prevent this, compressed air was used. 
 
 Every one knows that he can hold up a column of water with 
 a column of air. Eet him fill a U-shaped glass tube half full of 
 water, hold it upright, with the open ends upward, and blow 
 into one end of it. 
 
 The water will rise in the other leg of the tube, and the 
 
THE ST. CLAIR TUNNEL. 
 
 13 
 
 harder he blows the higher the water will rise and the longer 
 will be the part of the tube free from water. 
 
 Now, if one could put a fly in the dry leg of the tube and 
 stop the end of it, the water would be held in the other leg, 
 and the fly could move about at his pleasure, dry-shod. 
 
 This is the principle on which compressed air has long been 
 used in deep foundations and other work under water. At the 
 St. Clair Tunnel the dry leg of the tube was the tunnel ; the wet 
 leg was the river, and the workmen were the flies. 
 
 It must be remembered that in all of this description I speak 
 of one-half of the tunnel. It was built from the United States 
 side and from the Canadian side, simultaneously, and the work 
 
 at each end was entirely independent of that at the other, until 
 the headings met under the middle of the river. 
 
 A brick partition, eight feet thick, was built in the tunnel 
 just where it passed below the edge of the river. This was to 
 hold the air in the tunnel. The air was pumped in through 
 tubes built in the brick partition, and the pressure was always 
 kept up to the point where it balanced the weight of the water 
 overhead. 
 
 It will be understood that the deeper one goes, and the 
 higher the column of water, the greater the air pressure that 
 must be carried. 
 
 The men, mules and clay cars went in and out of that part 
 of the tunnel which was filled with compressed air by means of an 
 air-lock in the brick partition. This was a big tube extending 
 through the partition with a door at each end, both doors 
 opening against the air pressure — that is, toward the working 
 end of the tunnel. 
 
 To get into the tunnel from without, the air in the lock was 
 
14 THE ST. CLAIR TUNNEL. 
 
 allowed to escape until the outer door could be opened. Then 
 one entered the air-lock, shut the door and opened a valve by 
 which compressed air from the tunnel ahead was let into the 
 lock. When the pressure there was equal to that in the tunnel 
 ahead, the inner door could be opened and one could pass into 
 the tunnel. To get out the process was reversed. 
 
 The painful part of the journey is in the air-lock, at the time 
 when the pressure is changing. There people often suffer severe 
 pain in the ears from unequal pressure on the two sides of the 
 ear-drum, and sometimes the suffering is so great that they 
 cannot go on. 
 
 After one has been a little while in the compressed air the 
 pain ceases ; but there is a trouble which is peculiar to working 
 in compressed air, and which disables a good many men. The 
 men call it the bends. It is a paralysis, more or less complete, 
 of the muscles, and especially of the muscles of the legs. 
 
 Sometimes it is not painful, but often it is very painful 
 indeed. At the St. Clair Tunnel horses could not work in the 
 compressed air, but mules stood it well, though occasionallj^ 
 one of them was visited with the bends. 
 
 The pressure of air carried was ten pounds per square inch 
 at first, and twenty-three pounds when the middle of the river 
 was reached. At times it was run up to forty pounds. Of course 
 these pressures are in addition to the normal atmospheric 
 pressure of fourteen pounds per square inch, which is always 
 present on every body and every surface in the open air. 
 
 The air pressure was kept up by pumps, and to guard against 
 accident there were two sets of air-compressors at each end of 
 the tunnel. If the supply of air had failed for a moment the 
 water would have rushed in and drowned the men. 
 
 Besides the air-compressing plant, machinery had to be 
 provided for pumping out any water that drained into the 
 tunnel during the work, and other machinery for lighting it by 
 electricity. There were hoisting engines and derricks with 
 which to lift to the surface the dump cars as they came out 
 loaded with clay. 
 
 1 
 
THE ST. CivAIR TUNNKly. 
 
 15 
 
 It happened repeatedly that the shields, as they were forced 
 forward, entered pockets of gravel or quicksand going deep 
 down into the blue clay. Then the air would escape through 
 the loose material, and the water would begin to flow in. 
 
 Generally this could be stopped soon by increasing the 
 quantity of air pumped in, but not always. Sometimes the air 
 blew out through the bottom of the river so fast that the 
 air-pumps could not keep up pressure enough to stop the flow 
 of water. 
 
 More than once it seemed as if the tunnel would be flooded 
 in spite of all that could be done, but luckily the engineers were 
 always able, by plastering over the face of the gravel with clay, 
 and by working the air-compressors up to a pressure of as much 
 as fort}^ pounds to the square inch, to hold back the water long 
 enough to get the shield through the loose gravel into the clay 
 beyond. 
 
 On the thirtieth day of August, 1890, the shield from the 
 United States shore met that from Canada, under the middle of 
 the river. This was just one year after they started on their 
 strange journeys ; and I do not believe that any one was happier 
 or more thankful than was the chief engineer of the St. Clair 
 Tunnel on that August day. " 
 
 H. G. Prout. 
 
Winter -Fishing on Saginaw Bay. 
 
 Most boys and a few girls know something about fishing for 
 trout, pickerel or bass in the brooks, ponds and rivers, and 
 many, no doubt, have fished in the sea for cod and mackerel. 
 
 Fishing, in fact, is a popular recreation in nearly all countries. 
 For this reason it may be interesting to many readers to hear 
 something of a method of fishing, less well known than the 
 tactics of the hook and line, such as is practised through the ice 
 of the Great Lakes of our country in winter. 
 
 But first let me ask our younger readers to fetch the atlas, or 
 geography, and turn to the map of the State of Michigan, and 
 find Saginaw Bay, an indentation in the northeastern shore of 
 lower Michigan, about seventy miles in depth and sixty miles 
 in width at its junction with Lake Huron. 
 
 The shores of this great Bay curve gradually toward each 
 other, until they reach the famous Saginaw River, from which 
 the Bay derives its name. 
 
 About forty miles dovs^n the Bay the Charity Islands stretch 
 across its centre, and, to some extent, protect it against the wild 
 northeast storms of that region. 
 
 In mild winters there is always open water above the Charity 
 Islands, and the ice, from five to ten inches thick, is often more 
 or less broken up, and dangerous for fishermen ; but in cold 
 winters the Bay will be solidly frozen out to the islands, and 
 sometimes far beyond them. I have been on it, ice-boating, 
 when there was no obstacle in the way of a sixty-mile run, with 
 much of the ice-field as smooth as glass, over which our boat 
 would fairly fly in a wild race with the wind. 
 
 On this huge winter park there have been known to be, at 
 one time, as many as two thousand five hundred people engaged 
 in fishing. It might be deemed a risky place on which to live, 
 and yet, with the ice thirty- six inches thick, without a bubble, 
 there is not the slightest danger until the warm days of spring . 
 
WINTKR-FISHINCr ON SAGINAW BAY. 
 
 17 
 
 The fisherman's house is unlike anything else ever made for 
 people to live in, and you would say, if you were a stranger in 
 an ice village, that the huts must have been built for dogs, for 
 they are just about like dog-kennels, only they are not nearly 
 so well made as most such kennels. 
 
 The shanty, for that is the name by which the winter house 
 is known, is from five to six feet long, by about two and a half 
 to three feet wide, three and a half feet high at the eaves, with 
 a sharp pitch roof ; so that directly under the ridge a man of 
 ordinary height can stand with head and shoulders a little bent. 
 
 Fishing Shanties. 
 
 This pigmy structure is made of rough boards, and covered 
 all over with tarred paper. The floor is of loose boards, laid on 
 the ice. The furniture consists of a narrow wooden bench, 
 extending along one side, which serves as a seat by day and a 
 couch by night. 
 
 Wedged in at the rear end is a little sheet-iron stove, scarcely 
 larger than a big frying-pan, on which stands a small spider 
 and a coffee-pot. At the front end is a door, so small that the 
 fisherman has to bend on entering the house. 
 
 Just inside the door is the fishing-hole, about eighteen inches 
 square, in which the water rises almost to the surface, and from 
 which every speck of ice has been carefully removed. 
 
 Above this hole in the ice is a small hole in the roof, through 
 which the spear-handle is passed when removing it from the 
 water, but which is kept tightly closed when the fisherman is at 
 work. The spear-head has six barbed prongs of fine steel. The 
 
i 
 
 WINTKR-FISHING ON SAGINAW BAY. 
 
 handle is about seven feet long, and is secured by a strong cord 
 to the roof. On one side of the handle a screw, about three 
 feet from the spear-head, serves as a rest, and holds the spear 
 perpendicularly in the hole. 
 
 The spear is thus supported by the screw, which is caught 
 on the edge of a floor board. In that position it is at the right 
 hand of the fisherman, ready for instant use. 
 
 Having seen the shanty, let us now follow the fisherman into 
 it and observe him at his vocation. Getting inside, he closes 
 
 the door carefully 
 ray of light save 
 through the deli- 
 the water, as soft 
 lowest moonlight, 
 air. There, in 
 after hour, 
 ice, a veritable 
 
 thus shutting out every 
 what is sifted up 
 cately-tinted green of 
 and beautiful as mel- 
 f ailing through summer 
 that solitary cell, hour 
 over that hole in the 
 human cat, sits the 
 loneliest of lone fish- 
 ermen, waiting for 
 his prey. In his left 
 hand he holds 
 a slender cord, 
 to the lower 
 end of which 
 is attached a 
 decoy. The 
 decoy is a her- 
 ring, when it 
 
 can be obtained. When the fisherman cannot get a herring, he 
 uses an imitation one, made of wood ballasted with lead and 
 trimmed with tin fins and tail and glass eyes ; and this herring- 
 decoy is a beautiful imitation, as seen twenty feet below in the 
 water, with every scale shining as white as a new silver coin. 
 
 The fishing is done in water the depth of which varies with 
 the run of the fish, which is at times well inshore and again 
 off, in thirty, fifty and seventy feet of water. The decoy-line is 
 
 Fishing through the Ice. 
 
WINTKR-FISHING ON SAGINAW BAY. 
 
 19 
 
 knotted at a point that will bring the pursuing fish up to 
 within eighteen inches of the spear ; so that when that knot 
 reaches the fisherman's hand he knows just about the distance 
 he has to drive his spear. 
 
 When the fisherman goes to work he drops his decoy well 
 toward the bottom, or as far as he can see it, which is a long 
 distance in the clear, still water. As soon as a fish appears, 
 the decoy is moved carefully upward, the darkness of the 
 closed shanty preventing the fish from seeing the movements 
 above him, while he can be seen as distinctly as if he were on 
 the surface. 
 
 When the fish hesitates, the decoy stops ; if the fish starts 
 forward, the decoy is drawn farther up. If he retreats, it is 
 lowered toward him. Thus the trick is played until the fish 
 becomes excited and rushes in upon the coveted prey. The 
 line is then rapidly hauled in until the knot reaches the 
 fisherman's hand, when he grasps his spear and drives it into 
 the back of his game. 
 
 The fish thus speared are now chiefly pike, although along 
 the Straits of Mackinac many lake trout are still speared in 
 winter, and in some places whitefish are caught in this way, 
 but only rarely, as they are not a game fish and are protected 
 by law. 
 
 But when white men first came to Saginaw Bay to fish they 
 caught large quantities of splendid trout, the largest ones 
 weighing from fifty to seventy pounds. 
 
 Charles Ellis. 
 
I 
 
 Dog -Sledges in Michigan. 
 
 Although dog-teams are no longer used in the lower 
 peninsula of Michigan, they have not ceased to be employed 
 near the Straits of Mackinac and in the upper peninsula. 
 Until fifteen years ago, when the railroads were pushed through 
 the forests as far north as Marquette, dog-trains were necessary 
 for carrying the United States mails. They are still an 
 important motive power in many remote places where canoes 
 in summer and dog-sledges in winter are the only methods of ; 
 travel. 
 
 In my early life in Saginaw, the coming of the dog-train 
 from Marquette was one of the sensational events of a winter in v 
 the pine woods. These trips were made at intervals of two 
 weeks from the closing of navigation in November until its 
 opening in April or May. 
 
 Saginaw was at one end of the route, and I have often seen 
 the w^eary dogs climb the river-bank at the close of their 
 tedious journey of ten days. For safety they had to travel near 
 the shore, and often upon the ice, so that the length of their 
 route was estimated at six hundred miles, though the distance 
 between Saginaw and Marquette by rail is only about three 
 hundred and seventy-five miles. 
 
 The sledges in use at that time were shaped like toboggans, 
 and were each ten feet long and about fourteen inches wide, 
 with the front curved. These sledges were the property of the 
 United States government, and their chief mission was to carry 
 the mail, which was packed in close parcels, covered with | 
 waterproof canvas, and tightly strapped to the sledge, the 1 
 whole being lashed with buckskin thongs to a leather band 
 fastened to the edge of the board. 
 
 The sledges always w^ent in pairs, each having four dogs and 
 two couriers. These men w^ere half-breeds and wore a costume f 
 peculiarly their own. Over heavy woollen underclothing they 
 
DOG-SI.KDGKvS IN MICHIGAN. 
 
 21 
 
 wore a coat made from a Mackinac blanket, usually gray with 
 black stripes ; a hood of the same material was attached to the 
 back of the coat's neck, and this hood was drawn over the fur 
 cap at night or in very cold weather. A bright red scarf 
 girded the waist. The breeches were of tanned buckskin ; the 
 feet were well protected by deerskin moccasins and several 
 pairs of heavy stockings, the outer pair of a bright red. 
 
 Snow-shoes were always included in the outfit, being necessary 
 where snow was deep. 
 
 The dogs travelled tandem, with harness of collar, back 
 bands and traces. Sleigh-bells were attached to the collars, 
 which were frequently ornamented with bead work and gay 
 worsted tassels. The best dog was called the leader ; the rear 
 dog was called the steerer, as he often had to display ingenuity 
 in keeping the sled upright in difficult places. 
 
 The regular sledge dogs are a peculiar breed, known as 
 huskies, supposed to be a corruption of the word Eskimo, and 
 
22 
 
 DOG-SI.EDGES IN MICHIGAN. 
 
 are derived from dogs of Eskimo stock. They have small 
 heads, long noses, short but pointed ears and bushy tails. 
 Their cry is a yelp rather than a bark, and is thought to re- 
 semble the noise made by a wolf. 
 
 While faithful to their task, they are quarrelsome, and are 
 not generally treated in a manner to develop the better side of 
 their nature. They are not guided by reins, but entirely by the 
 voice and whip ; hence they are shouted at and shrieked at in 
 French, Indian and English. 
 
 One courier runs before the team, the other follows the 
 sledge, often aiding its progress by means of a long stick which 
 extends from the rear at an angle of forty-five degrees. 
 
 When semi-monthly trips by dog- team supplied, for six 
 months each year, the only means of communication between 
 the world and the people in our northern wilds, the returning 
 sledges were usually loaded with accumulated papers and 
 magazines. Other parcels were often carried as freight for a 
 stiff price. Occasionally there would be a passenger, if that 
 word can be applied to a man who paid from five dollars to 
 fifteen dollars for the privilege of accompanying the sledges. 
 
 The route was through a trackless forest or over great fields 
 of ice, with at least half of the nights to be passed under no 
 shelter but the pine-trees and with a snow-bank for a bed. 
 Provisions for both men and dogs were always carried ; the 
 food for the dogs consisted of Indian meal and tallow. 
 
 Men and dogs showed great powers of endurance, making 
 forty, fifty or sixty miles a day, according to the condition of 
 the snow and ice, and doing the whole journey with much 
 regularity. Nothing short of a most extraordinary storm 
 retarded the arrival and departure of the mail-trains. In a 
 storm, or if bewildered in regard to location, the couriers trusted 
 entirely to the dogs, who never failed to keep the right course. 
 
 Nowadays, for short journeys sleds mounted on runners are 
 used, but they would not be serviceable in very deep or soft 
 snow. While dogs are not so necessary to the settlers as twenty 
 years ago, they are still employed in the northern part of the 
 
DOG-SLEDGKS IN MICHIGAN. 
 
 23 
 
 State. The fishermen all along shore keep dogs to carry their 
 catch to market, and to bring wood and other supplies to their 
 isolated huts. 
 
 There are many fine teams kept for the pleasure of their 
 owners, who consider them more desirable than horses in that 
 cold region, as they can lightly pass over great drifts of snow 
 and brave the wildest storms. Missionaries frequently employ 
 dog-teams. In 1896 one of them travelled nearly four hundred 
 miles with his dog-sleigh through the wilds of northern Michigan. 
 
 Turk and Punch were with difficulty broken to the work 
 required of them. In telling me of his experiences in travelling, 
 the missionary said : 
 
 " While at work the dogs are fed but once a day, and that 
 at night when their work is done. This does not in any way 
 betoken cruelty to the dogs, for they do better work, with less 
 fatigue, than if they were fed three times a day. My dogs 
 weigh over one hundred pounds each, and were in a much 
 better condition at the end of the season than when they started 
 out. 
 
 "Turk took kindly to his duty from the first, springing to 
 his proper place the moment the sleigh-bells were heard ; but 
 Punch would growl and snarl, and had to be forced each time 
 to his position by the side of his amiable mate, who patiently 
 awaited the word, ' Go ! ' 
 
 " Then, with little impatient yelps and sleigh-bells jingling, 
 they bounded over the huge drifts of snow, through the 
 pathless woods, often making eight miles an hour." 
 
 Mkrcia Abbott Keith. 
 
The Ishpeming Dog- Race 
 
 The upper peninsula of Michigan, that great stretch of big 
 pines, barren plains and rugged hills seamed with mineral 
 riches, has one custom which is probably unique. It is the 
 annual dog-race, which is regularly held at the beginning of 
 the year in several of the larger mining towns. 
 
 Its origin dates back to the times, not more than a half- 
 century ago, when the Canadian French and the Chippewas 
 were almost the sole residents. The Indians lived as they did 
 in the days of Hiawatha, except where the patient missionaries 
 had founded little churches, around which clearings had been 
 made, and half-civilized and half-Christianized Indians were 
 gaining a living, partly by the chase and the trap, and partly 
 from the products of their little farms. 
 
 The French settlers were trappers and farmers, and their 
 means of gaining a livelihood and their manner of living differed 
 little from that of their dusky brethren. 
 
 In those days the sailboat and rowboat in summer, and the 
 dog-train in winter, were the sole means of transportation. 
 The government mails were carried at stated intervals b}^ hardy 
 half-breeds or equally hardy Canadians in their boats or upon 
 their backs in summer, while during the long winters, beginning 
 in November and rarely ending before May, the dogs were 
 compelled to take the burden. Sometimes strongly-built 
 sledges of home manufacture were used, and as frequently the 
 Indian toboggan was pressed into service. 
 
 In the larger mining towns, such as Ishpeming and 
 Calumet, the annual dog-race is looked forward to in winter 
 with almost as much pleasure by Young America as is the 
 Fourth of July in the summer-time*. 
 
 In Ishpeming at one New Year's festival, although the day 
 was bitterly cold, with a furious wind seeking the ears and 
 noses of the people on the streets, five thousand persons 
 
THE ISHPKMING IXXr-KACK. 
 
 25 
 
 assembled along the race-course, which was on Bank Street. 
 The windows of the buildings facing on the street were crowded 
 with ladies and children, while even the statue of the Chippewa 
 chief on the square upheld several enterprising youngsters, who 
 there obtained a good view of the start. 
 
 With great difficulty the line was formed. The entries in 
 the first class were thirty-two in number ; and the line of dogs, 
 sleds and boys stretched 
 across the street. The 
 judges and starters 
 
 The Big Newfoundland Leads. 
 
 were assisted by the marshal, in his fur overcoat and fur 
 cap, while policemen stood conveniently along the course to 
 keep back the overeager spectators. 
 
 The sight was a strange one. Boys of all ages from eight to 
 sixteen were seated upon sleds of all styles, including several of 
 home manufacture. Attached to these sleds by harness and 
 tackle of every variety, from the made-to-order leather harness 
 
26 
 
 THE ISHPEMING DOG-RACE. 
 
 to the hastily-constructed gear of rope and twine, were dogs of 
 all sorts and conditions. There were sorry curs of low degree, 
 and shaggy Newfoundlands ; there were huge mastiffs and 
 slender greyhounds ; and every dog and every driver were 
 bursting with anxiety for the word to start. 
 
 The starter said " Go! " and the dogs went. Four or five 
 of the number shot swiftly forward, others travelled more slowly. 
 One huge St. Bernard made a desperate leap which was too 
 much for the worn harness, and his young driver was left 
 behind. Another boy was caught off guard, and left rolling in 
 the snow while his steed was dragging an empty sled toward 
 the turning-point. Two other dogs started at cross-purposes, 
 and dogs, boys and sleds were tangled in a snarl which lasted 
 till the fleeter racers had reached the turning-point, three blocks 
 distant. 
 
 Of the number entered, but five or six displayed genuine 
 racing qualities. One poor youngster, whose dog was well to 
 the front, was sorely disappointed when his Towser, despite 
 urgent entreaties and the liberal application of a whip, turned 
 at the last corner before the goal and ran home at the top of his 
 speed. That dog went supperless to bed that night. His 
 youthful master faced the gibes of an unfeeling public, composed 
 of his young neighbors at school, the next morning. 
 
 The second heat was almost a repetition of the first, though 
 the starters were ten less in number. A big Newfoundland 
 came in ahead both times. His driver had no whip, and needed 
 none. Even boys who drive dogs vSometimes learn that neither 
 boy nor dog can have his best endeavors brought out by the use 
 of a lash. The boy who learned this lesson was richer, a 
 half-hour later, in the possession of the best suit of clothes that 
 could be found in the city, for that was the first prize. 
 
 The races continued for nearly two hours, the entries growing 
 fewer in number toward the last, while the racing was better. 
 The boys owning refractory dogs, or dogs unnerved by the 
 presence of five thousand spectators, were compelled, reluctantly, 
 to withdraw from a hopeless contest. From the side streets 
 
THK ISHPKMING DOG-RACK. 
 
 27 
 
 there frequently arose howls from luckless dogs, suffering 
 chastisement at the hands of their aggrieved drivers. 
 
 At last the races were over. Skates, sleds and dog harnesses 
 were the prizes. The last prize was a mammoth soup-bone, and 
 it was expressly stipulated by the management that this should 
 be for the exclusive use and enjoyment of the winning dog, and 
 not the boy. 
 
 The competition for this prize was not so brisk as when sleds 
 and skates were at stake ; but there were four entries, and a 
 mangy yellow cur that had never been in sight of the quarter- 
 pole before that day trotted off with the soup-bone. 
 
 His ten-year-old owner and driver — for this was a gentleman 
 driver's race, only owners being allowed to act as jockeys — 
 went home with tears in his eyes and the firm conviction that 
 his beast could have easily won for him that suit of clothes, but 
 preferred, out of the meanness of his canine nature, to win the 
 soup-bone for his own carnal enjoyment. 
 
 Horace J. Stkvkns. 
 
 Neither Won. 
 
A Wisconsin Skate -Sail 
 
 Of skate-sailing in general less needs to be said now than a 
 dozen years ago. It is a wonderfully fine and fascinating 
 sport, based on the longing for wings. Who can stand skate- 
 shod on the ice with a fresh breeze blowing, and not feel that 
 longing ? But although many of us boys had long felt that 
 desire, it was only with the introduction of the form of sail of 
 which I write, and which is used by the boys in Wisconsin, 
 that skate-sailing came into great popularity among us. 
 
 Our sail is, to describe it in the simplest terms, simply a 
 triangular piece of cloth, stretched on a T-shaped frame, carried 
 to windward but unattached to the body. One of its chief 
 merits is its simplicity. Yet it has other excellent qualities ; 
 I know of no other form of sail with which so large a 
 wind-surface can be carried with such complete safety. 
 
 It is a safe sail because it is unattached to the body ; with 
 a little experience one can even drop it upon the ice if it 
 becomes necessary. In using a sail which is fastened to the 
 body there is always the danger, especially in a gusty wind 
 when skate-sailing is .---"1 
 at its best, of one's 
 
 sail becoming unman- - ' 
 
 ageable. 
 
 The frame consists ■— —^^ 
 
 of two pieces. The ■"----....^ 
 
 length of the cross- P'an of the Sail. 
 
 spar should be about 
 twice the distance from the ground to the armpit of the boy 
 as he stands upon skates. Thus, for a boy of sixteen the 
 cross-spar should be perhaps eight feet long, and the main- 
 spar should be twice the length of the cross-spar. The sail 
 should be made of heavy unbleached muslin or sheeting, cut 
 of such a size that, after hems have been made all around, the 
 
A WISCONSIN SKATK-SAII,. 
 
 29 
 
 sail shall be a trifle narrower at the wide end than the length 
 of the cross-spar, and about a foot shorter when stretched than 
 the main-spar. 
 
 The sail is carried on the windward side of the body, the 
 main-spar being held under the arm about three or four feet 
 from the forward end. The lower end of the cross-spar comes 
 a few inches above the ice ; the rear end of the main-spar drags. 
 
 The centre of resistance is about one-third of the distance 
 from the forward end. The whole problem of steering is 
 involved with one's relation to this point. 
 
 If you are going directly before the wind, you should be 
 just at this point. If you are tacking, you should come a little 
 forward. If you would come into the wind, steer closer with 
 your skates and come to the front of the sail, when, of course, 
 all the wind is spilled behind. To come about, the sail is 
 shifted to the other arm by being passed over the head and 
 turned upside down. There is always perfect safety so long 
 as you are able to come forward of the centre of resistance. 
 
 Now, if you are ready let us take a long flight up the river. 
 
 Sailing Before the Wind. 
 
30 
 
 A WISCONSIN SKATE-SAIL. 
 
 There is a strong and gusty gale, the kind of wind that makes 
 you love the sport. The hard surface of the ice stretches out 
 before us far and wide, polished and smooth, and ringing, when 
 struck, like a plate of finely tempered steel. We are off ! 
 
 How the wind rushes ! But we know you of old, Boreas ! 
 Many a time have we wrestled with you upon this glassy 
 arena ! We speed away with a swoop, the sharp steel hissing, 
 the wind stinging our faces, the spray from our skates whirling 
 over the surface. Braced with all our strength we lean far 
 over upon the wind. Yet a stronger gust has seized us, and 
 we are whirled away like leaves across the ice. 
 
 But here we are at the end of our course, and we rush up 
 into the wind; it howls and roars about us, and the sail shakes 
 and quivers. Again we are off on our wild flight back. 
 
 There is joy in an ocean-swim, through the surf and out 
 upon the great waves. There is joy in swimming in the brown 
 water of some Northern river among great, fragrant logs. I 
 remember moments when tearing over the ice on skates after a 
 shinny-block seemed the most glorious thing in life. 
 
 Again, there are the memories of long skatings off into the 
 sunset, with fine feelings of freedom and power. Or our skates 
 have led us on into quiet bayous, which stretch back into the 
 depths of the solemn forest. We linger to watch the colors in 
 the west through the branches and among the great trunks of 
 the elms. Then, as we turn homeward in the phantom light 
 of the moon, we hear the reverberating cr}^ of the great owls, 
 and the river begins solemnly to boom with the settling down 
 of night. 
 
 Among a host of such happy memories I count many a 
 glorious sail on skates. 
 
 A. W. Whitnky. 
 
A Trip to Lake Superior, 
 
 The first of July found me sitting on the forward deck of a 
 fine, stanch steamer lying at her dock in Detroit. I was 
 surrounded by fishing-rods, reels, rubber boots and the usual 
 equipments of fishermen. With me was a young companion, 
 Arthur Denison ; we were bound for a trip to the Lake Superior 
 country. 
 
 Passing through the turbid waters of Lake St. Clair, by 
 Port Huron and Sarnia, we soon found ourselves tossing upon 
 the angry waters of Lake Huron. 
 
 The next morning early we were at a small island noted for 
 producing more raspberry jam than any other manufactory in 
 the United States. The berries were picked by the Indians 
 and manufactured into jam by the thousands of gallons 
 annually. 
 
 Once more under way, and we soon entered the St. Mary's 
 River, and in a few hours were at the rapids, waiting at the 
 mouth of the canal for our turn to pass through. 
 
 As we were obliged to wait an hour or two at this point, we 
 took a stroll, and soon discovered several Chippewa lodges, in 
 one of which lived an old squaw, said to be one hundred and 
 seventeen years old. 
 
 These Indians earned a precarious living by catching 
 whitefish in the rapids, and making boxes and baskets of 
 birch-bark and a fragrant grass that grows in the vicinity, 
 which they sold to visitors. 
 
 We stood on the shore for a w^hile, and watched the Indians 
 catch the fish. Two of them entered a birch-bark canoe, so 
 light and frail that it seemed almost as fragile as an egg-shell. 
 They paddled up until they reached the first fall in the rapids, 
 then one of them took his place in the prow with a scoop-net, 
 and the other steadied the canoe with his paddle. 
 
 The Indian in the prow stood so motionless that Arthur 
 
32 
 
 A TRIP TO JwVKK SUPERIOR. 
 
 thought he must be asleep ; but suddenly we saw the * net 
 descend, and in a moment it rose all dripping with water, and 
 a fine large whitefish was deposited, gasping, in the bottom of 
 the canoe. 
 
 Again on board the boat, we slowly steamed in between two 
 high walls of stone, a pair of immense gates were closed 
 behind us, and then the great boat began to rise slowly, and in 
 a few minutes we were in another lock; the great gates again 
 
 steamer in the Lock. 
 
 closed behind us, and then we rose to a level with the lake 
 before us. We thus passed around the rapids in the great 
 St. Mary's Falls Ship Canal, and were fairly launched on the 
 bosom of the great lake, whose green waters extended for 
 nearly five hundred miles before us. 
 
 Just as the sun rose the following morning, the captain 
 called us to come on deck, and a remarkable sight greeted our 
 eyes. Every one asked, "Why, where are we?" and the 
 captain finally told us, "In Le Portail." The great steamer, 
 with its tall masts and smoke-stacks, was in an immense 
 cavern, more than a hundred feet high. 
 
 "IvOok," cried Arthur, "how can the boat stay here? 
 The water isn't more than two feet deep." 
 
 But the captain told us that it was more than twenty-five 
 
A TRIP TO IvAKE SUI'KRIOR. 
 
 33 
 
 feet deep. Yet so clear and transparent was it that we could 
 see the delicate tints and colors of every pebble on the bottom 
 as plainly as though they lay in our hand. 
 
 In a short time the great steamer backed out of the cave, 
 and in a few hours more we found ourselves along the busy 
 docks at Marquette, over which millions of tons of iron ore are 
 annually shipped to the great manufacturing centres of the 
 world. 
 
 The captain sent for Steve, a well-known half-breed, who 
 ^ was soon along side the dock with his neat and clean " Lady 
 of the Lake." Our rods, troUing-lines and our luncheons, 
 were soon in the boat. Steve took the oars, and away we 
 leaped over the emerald-green waters. 
 
 Before we had been out five minutes, Arthur asked : 
 
 " When shall we begin to fish ? " 
 
 "Good time now," replied Steve, who gave a nod of 
 approval of our " spoons," and overboard they went. 
 
 We watched the bright-silvered, gaily painted trolls, as 
 they glistened far behind us in the clear water, and pretty soon 
 Steve said, " That's enough," and we stopped paying out our 
 lines, and anxiously waited for a bite. 
 
 Arthur soon exclaimed, "I've got a fish! I've got one! 
 Let me pull him in ! Don't touch the line ! " 
 
 ' ' Steady ! Pull steady ! ' ' said Steve ; and in a few minutes 
 a six-pound Mackinac trout lay flapping in the bottom of the 
 boat. 
 
 The fish came so fast that our hands grew both tired and 
 sore, and we were glad to hear the guide suggest pulling 
 inshore towards a small rocky island near the mouth of Cart 
 River, that we might try our luck at speckled trout. 
 
 Our rods were soon jointed, our reels attached, lines 
 fastened, and in a very few minutes after our keel struck the 
 pebbly beach we were on the rocks. I threw a small black 
 fly with gaudy wings, and it had scarcely struck the water 
 before a noble fellow seized it. 
 
 The sport went on, until we heard the hoarse whistle of the 
 
34 
 
 A TRIP TO I.AKP: SUPKRIOR. 
 
 " Ironsides " ; and though Arthur declared, " It's too bad ! " 
 we took the boat, and Steve soon landed us and our precious 
 cargo at the dock. 
 
 Morning found us in Portage Lake, and we visited two of 
 the largest towns in the Lake Superior country, near the 
 richest copper-mines in the world. There all is life and 
 
 activity, and we saw the locomotive come puffing out of the 
 bowels of the earth with its car-loads of ore. 
 
 On our way back we visited the Minnesota and National 
 mines, where we descended the shafts to immense depths, and 
 saw the grimy miners, with their little safety-lamps fastened in 
 their hats, as they delved and toiled for the precious ore, some 
 of which contains large quantities of virgin silver. 
 
 At Ontonagon we met the man who carried the mail during 
 the winter season, and furnished the only means of communi- 
 cation that this thriving settlemen-t had with the outside world 
 during the long, cold winter. He was a half-breed, and with 
 his train of noble dogs and sledge, made an easy sixty miles 
 per day over the frozen crust with his mail-bags. 
 
 steamer at Detroit. 
 
 Samuki. W. Cozzkns. 
 
Hop-Picking in Central New York. 
 
 In many a quaint old farmhouse, from the middle of August 
 until the first of September, numerous preparations are made 
 for the gathering of the hop crop. To the hop-grower it means 
 a season of anxiety and hard work ; to the pickers a sort of 
 holiday, combined with the satisfactory prospect of making a 
 little money. 
 
 The good wife certainly has her hands full at this time. 
 Kvery available space is utilized for sleeping accomodations ; 
 beds are spread in the parlor, hall and attic, and the male 
 portion of the help often sleep in the hop-house. 
 
 The fattest lambs, the choicest chickens, are all sacrificed 
 to appease the hungry pickers. There seems to be a rivalry 
 among the farmers as to who will set the best table. Perhaps 
 it is for their interest to do this, as oftentimes there is a scarcity 
 of pickers, and the farmer who has the reputation for good 
 living seldom has trouble in securing help. 
 
 When they are in the condition for picking, the hops must 
 be gathered at once, as a delay of a few days would result in a 
 serious loss to the farmer. 
 
 In certain localities near villages the pickers often board 
 themselves, bringing their dinners, and returning to their 
 homes at night ; but the majority of the growers board their 
 hands. Almost every one in this section goes hop-picking, 
 the rich and poor, the young and old, oftentimes whole 
 families, in which latter case the earnings are considerable. 
 
 It is a pleasant sight to watch the pickers going to their 
 daily task. There are many well-dressed people, matrons, 
 pretty girls and young children, all looking fresh and cheerful, 
 with their lunch-baskets on their arms, all chatting and 
 laughing, and appearing totally unconcerned as to the task 
 before them. 
 
 Yonder comes a lumber wagon loaded with a farmer's whole 
 
36 
 
 HOP-PICKING IN CENTRAL NEW YORK. 
 
 family. Among them is one woman, perhaps seventy years 
 old, bringing her easy chair to sit in while picking. The 
 mother has the baby on her arms, who will soon be sleeping 
 sweetl}^ beneath the graceful clusters of hops. 
 
 The hops as they are picked are put into boxes. The 
 main box is divided into four separate compartments or boxes, 
 
 In the Hop-Field. 
 
 each holding eight bushels. There are four pickers to a main 
 box, each picker having his own box holding eight bushels. 
 The number of boxes picked by a person in a day depends 
 upon the abundance of the hops, their size, and the ability of 
 the picker. The general average is, perhaps, from two to four 
 boxes per day. 
 
 The wages paid range from thirty-five cents to fifty cents 
 
HOP-PICKING IN CENTRAL NEW YORK. 
 
 37 
 
 per day when the picker is boarded, or from fifty cents to 
 seventy-five cents when he boards himself. 
 
 Every main box has a box-tender whose business it is to 
 pull the poles, .strip the vines from them, and keep the pickers 
 supplied with hops. It is quite a responsible position, as it is 
 also his duty to see that the poles are picked clean, the hops in 
 the boxes kept free from leaves and stems, and no hops wasted 
 on the ground. 
 
 As soon as a box is filled, it is sacked by the box-tender, 
 the picker holding the sack while the box-tender puts in the 
 hops, carefully picking out every large leaf and stem, and 
 frequently admonishing the pickers to pick their hops a little 
 cleaner. A setting comprises six rows of poles from each end 
 of the box, and three from each side. When these are all 
 picked, the box is moved forward to another setting. 
 
 A busy, merry throng they are, with their nimble fingers 
 working swiftly over the vines. 
 
 Noon soon comes, the gala event of the day, but none too 
 soon, for the bracing air, the pleasant exercise and the good 
 spirits of the company are all conducive to an appetite that is 
 a stranger to those working in stores and factories in large 
 towns and cities. A shady spot is selected beneath some grand 
 old tree, or in some grove beside a spring of sparkling water, 
 and here a table is spread on the green grass. 
 
 Such a variet}^ of good things ! Cold turkey, chicken, 
 geese, meats of all kinds, sandwiches, and innumerable pies, 
 cakes and puddings ; jugs of cold coffee, tea, milk and lemonade, 
 but never any malt or spirituous liquors. In an experience of 
 twenty-five years, I never saw a drunken person in a hop-field. 
 
 The women gossip as they eat, and in the pure air, with 
 the cool breezes from the hills fanning their sunburnt faces, 
 their loquacity seems to be so increased that it would leave 
 an}^ traditional tea-party far behind in the race of tongues. 
 
 John H. Adams. 
 
Charcoal - Burners. 
 
 Charcoal, as made in the forests of the United States, is 
 used principally for fuel in iron - smelting furnaces. In 
 Pennsylvania, for instance, many of the smelting companies own 
 timbered land and employ charcoal-burners, or coalers, as they 
 call themselves, to convert the wood into charcoal. 
 
 The men who call themselves coalers are not all directly 
 employed in charring the wood ; indeed, the majority of them 
 are simply choppers, who fell the trees and cut them into 
 cord- wood lengths. Thirty men are required through the winter 
 to cut the wood that ten of the gang can afterward char, and 
 these ten are truly coalers. They are generally sons of charcoal- 
 burners, while the choppers are commonly farmers' sons from 
 the neighboring region. 
 
 When the superintendent of a furnace has decided how many 
 cords of wood shall be cut from a certain tract, the location of a 
 camp is settled and choppers and coalers gather there. Their 
 first work is building cabins for the winter, as chopping is 
 usually done between November and April. In the spring the 
 coalers are left to deal with the wood, which has been piled in 
 ranks near where it is to be charred. 
 
 The cabins are built of logs with mud daubed into the 
 chinks. Smaller logs form the roofs, which are usually shingled 
 with several layers of bark, though I have seen sods used 
 instead. Against the cabin a chimney is built of stones and 
 mud, with a fireplace opening into the one room of the dwelling, 
 which is seldom larger than twelve feet by fourteen. Two 
 experienced men can build such a house in three days. 
 
 The chimney is the coaler's kitchen ; the bunk at the 
 opposite end of the cabin is his bedroom, and his sitting-room 
 is the space between. 
 
 Having housed themselves, all hands begin to fell trees, 
 chop them into lengths and pile these, each man keeping his 
 wood in a separate rank or pile. About once a week the wood 
 
CHARCOAL-BURNKRS. 
 
 39 
 
 boss visits the camp, measures the piles and credits each man 
 with the amount he has made. A strong chopper can put up 
 from three to four cords a day, and his wages vary in different 
 years between thirty and forty cents a cord. 
 
 In Pennsylvania the choppers leave camp about the middle 
 of April, when the coalers begin to build the pits, which are not 
 holes in the earth, but simply large mounds that much resemble 
 enormous ant-hills. 
 
 In constructing a pit the first thing is the building of the 
 chimney. This is formed by laying sticks of wood in a square 
 with the ends crossed, and so placing tier after tier till the 
 chimney is about twelve feet high. 
 
 All around this chimney the wood is leaned slanting, as the 
 coalers say, and placed in layer after layer till the whole is 
 
 in or fire showing at any point except such as the coalers may 
 choose. When covered with earth the pit is ready to be fired. 
 
 This is done by dropping coals from the top of the chimney 
 upon a little tinder laid at the bottom. As soon as the fire has 
 taken hold the top of the chimney is covered with earth, and no 
 draught of air allowed except such as flows slowly through the 
 covering of leaves and earth. 
 
 The coaler must be ever watchful lest the wood, which he 
 wishes to keep smoldering, should burn instead, and so yield not 
 charcoal but ashes. If he sees too much smoke coming from 
 any part of the pit he climbs up on a rude ladder and uses a 
 kind of wooden hoe to increase the thickness and solidity of the 
 earth-covering there. Sometimes a crater appears at some point 
 
 Plan of a Pit 
 
 about twenty-five feet in 
 diameter at the base. 
 Usually about thirty cords 
 of wood are placed in one 
 pit. Then the wood is 
 covered with a layer of 
 dead leaves and afterward 
 with earth, the purpose 
 being to prevent air getting 
 
40 
 
 CHARCOAL-BURNKRS. 
 
 where the earth has fallen in or crumbled away, then the coaler 
 must stop the hole with more earth. His business is simply to 
 keep the slow fire well banked up. 
 
 ■ If the weather be rainy he need not be so constantly on the 
 alert as when it is dry ; but if the wind be high he must be on 
 guard day and night. A little neglect may let the banked fire 
 gain such headway that it will largely consume the wood and 
 destroy the prospect of a good yield of charcoal. 
 
 Thirteen days are commonly required to coal such a pit as 
 I have described. But if the wood be light and the weather 
 windy a pit may be opened at the end of eight days. If a man 
 is industrious he may coal two such pits a month and earn from 
 forty to fifty dollars, according to the quantity of charcoal, for 
 which he is paid by the bushel. 
 
 Unfortunately the tick system prevails in Pennsylvania to 
 some extent ; hence the coaler is not always paid in money, but 
 sometimes in tickets or checks for food or goods kept at the 
 store of the furnace company. This pernicious system is 
 disliked by the coalers, though they are usually contented men, 
 who would not exchange their work for any other. 
 
 It is usually late in October when the wagons of the furnace 
 company make their latest rounds of the camps and haul away 
 any charcoal remaining at the pits. Then the coalers gather up 
 their few utensils and move on five or six miles, to begin again 
 the round of building, chopping and coaling. 
 
 How long charcoal will continue to be used for smelting 
 purposes no one can foresee. But coke has taken its place in 
 many quarters. Nevertheless many experts declare that no 
 fuel is so good as charcoal for smelting pigs that are to yield 
 such a high grade of malleable iron as is used for horseshoes, 
 horseshoe nails and so on. But as steel is rapidly supplanting 
 iron it is probable that the picturesque charcoal-burner will 
 disappear from our forests within a few years. 
 
 E. B. F1NDI.AY. 
 
Natural Gas. 
 
 The earliest Jesuit explorers of the Ohio Valley discovered 
 and reported columns of fire issuing from the ground. In 1775 
 George Washington sought to have set apart and reserved to 
 the public forever a square mile of land in the Kanawha Valley, 
 in the centre of which was a burning gas spring that he regarded 
 as one of the greatest of our national wonders. 
 
 The first use of natural gas for domestic purposes in this 
 country was made in 182 1 in the village of Fredonia, Chautauqua 
 County, N. Y., where enough of it was collected and piped to 
 supply thirty burners. The village inn was illuminated by this 
 gas when Lafayette passed through Fredonia in 1824. At the 
 same time a small lighthouse on Lake Erie warned vessels 
 from the coast with a flame of the same product. 
 
 Natural gas is found in connection with petroleum and salt 
 water deposits, and it was the gas that rushed from a salt-well, 
 bored in Western Virginia in 1841, that was first used as fuel 
 in a furnace. Here it supplied the heat necessary for boiling 
 and evaporating the salt water, and enabled the owners of the 
 well to make salt a little cheaper than other well-owners. 
 
 From the earliest development of the Pennsylvania oil-fields 
 a portion of the gas that generally accompanies the flow of oil 
 from a well has been used to heat the boilers of the pumping 
 engines, and to warm and light the dwellings in their vicinity. 
 
 For many years, however, it was oil and not gas which the 
 well-drillers were seeking, and they allowed millions of cubic 
 feet of the gas to escape, or burn to waste daily, with little 
 thought of its value. If it was lighted at the end of tall pipes 
 for the illumination of village streets or dark forest roads, no 
 one thought of turning it off at sunrise. By day as well as at 
 night its lurid, torch-like flames burned on hilltops, in valley 
 and forest throughout the oil regions. 
 
 In 1874 it was discovered that this fuel could be used more 
 
42 
 
 NATURAI, GAS. 
 
 effectively and cheaply than coal, in iron-works, glass-works 
 and other manufacturing establishments. It was not until 1883, 
 however, that the enormous volumes of gas supplied by the 
 Murraysville field were directed through twenty miles of iron 
 pipe to Pittsburg, and offered as fuel for the mills, factories, 
 stores and dwellings of that city. 
 
 With its use for this purpose, the manufacturing business of 
 that large city was revolutionized, its domestic comfort was 
 
 greatly increased, and its whole 
 aspect was changed. Not only 
 does gas furnish a more regular 
 and intense heat than coal, 
 but furnishes it at a reduced 
 cost, and does away with the 
 labor of handling coal, building 
 fires, keeping them supplied 
 with fuel, and disposing of the 
 accumulated ashes and cinders. 
 
 It was not found necessarj' 
 to make any material change in 
 the construction of furnaces, 
 open grates or stoves. Those 
 built for coal are still used for 
 gas. The onl}^ difference is 
 that, instead of kindlings, coal, 
 ashes, cinders, soot and smoke, 
 there is a small pipe that issues 
 from the floor and enters the 
 grate. A stop-cock is turned, 
 the gas is ignited, and any 
 degree of heat required can be obtained at once and regulated 
 at will. When no longer needed the flame is instantly extin- 
 guished, and all care of the fire is at an end. With a good 
 draught there is perfect combustion and no odor. 
 
 Natural gas is found in both sandstone and limestone 
 formations, at depths ranging from a few hundred to two 
 
 Gas Light. 
 
NATURAL GAS. 
 
 43 
 
 thousand feet, and is reached by wells bored in the same way as 
 for oil. In fact, it often happens that a well sunk for oil yields 
 gas instead. This was formerly regarded as a misfortune, but 
 the gas has become as valuable as the oil, and drilling for gas 
 is a well-established business. 
 
 Striking gas is a somewhat thrilling affair. As the ponderous 
 drill crashes through the thin remaining crust of slate, and 
 liberates the giant imprisoned for ages beneath, the column of 
 gas leaps up the five-inch pipe with such force as violently to 
 project the heavy boring tools, weighing a ton or more, through 
 the derrick frame. The gas, with a screaming roar, springs a 
 hundred feet into the air, a column of bluish vapor. Sometimes 
 it tears the casing of cast-iron pipe from the well, and hurls 
 after it volleys of earth and rock, mingled with jets of oil and 
 salt water. 
 
 Of course not all gas-wells begin business in this boisterous 
 manner. Most of them are of comparatively gentle flow and 
 easy to manage, though such scenes as the one described are 
 not uncommon in new fields. 
 
 The gas giant is fond of fire, and the moment he is loosed 
 from his underground prison he begins eagerly to search for it. 
 If it is found under the boiler of the pumping engine, in the bowl 
 of a workman's pipe, or in sparks struck from flinty rocks, the 
 pillar of vapor instantly becomes a column of flame, throwing 
 out an intense heat, devouring and withering everything in its 
 vicinity, and at night lighting miles of the surrounding country 
 with its angry glow. 
 
 It may burn for weeks, months, or even for years, before its 
 terrible strength is so exhausted that the torrent of flame can be 
 extinguished and its energies subdued to the service of man. 
 
 During the past forty years the quantity of gas thus wasted 
 has been enormous beyond belief, or power to compute. 
 But this waste is now almost wholly checked. Devices have 
 been perfected and adopted for seizing and controlling the vapor 
 upon its first appearance in the w^ell, and before it has drawn a 
 single breath of air, without which its ignition is impossible. 
 
44 
 
 NATURAL GAS. 
 
 Even the vast columns of flame that for so long baffled the 
 efforts of the gas men can now be surely and safely extinguished, 
 so that the gushers and roarers of new gas fields, with their 
 pressure of four or five hundred pounds to the square inch, are 
 conducted through a network of pipe lines to the scenes of their 
 future usefulness without loss of time or money, 
 
 Drilling a Gas-Well. 
 
 A singular spectacle was afforded by a well bored at 
 Gambier, Ohio. The well, not having been tubed, repeatedly 
 filled with water, which was ejected by the rush of gas at 
 regular intervals of one minute. An intermittent fountain of 
 mingled gas and water one hundred and twenty feet high was 
 thus formed. In winter the derrick above the well became so 
 completely incased in ice as to form a transparent chimney. 
 By cutting a hole at the base of this ice chimney, and igniting 
 the gas as it rushed upward, an effect was produced that at 
 night was weird and beautiful beyond description. 
 
 Another fascinating picture is made by the miniature aurora 
 
NATURAL GAS. 
 
 45 
 
 borealis that appears in the vicinity of blazing gas-wells on clear, 
 cold winter nights, when the air is charged with minute ice 
 crystals. The darkness glows and sparkles with broad bands, 
 streamers and brilliant points of light reflected from the 
 innumerable tiny frost diamonds that dart to and fro, waver, 
 disappear, and flash into brightness again in the mOvSt 
 bewildering manner. 
 
 The reservoirs of natural gas were once thought to be 
 inexhaustible. It was even maintained that the gas is produced 
 in the underground laboratories faster than it can be used. 
 This view is not now held. Wells have been exhausted and 
 have ceased to flow, and often the supply from a new one is 
 diminished as soon as another is sunk in its vicinity. However, 
 no communit}^ which has once enjoyed the blessings of a gas 
 fuel will willingly return to the use of coal. 
 
 Gas has become almost a necessity, and human ingenuity 
 is now at work in a thousand directions to invent methods for 
 producing it cheaply and abundantly from coal or other materials 
 in order that, when the natural supply is exhausted, an equally 
 good artificial supply may take its place. Communities which 
 cannot obtain natural gas are already demanding an artificial 
 product that shall give them equal advantages with localities 
 supplied by nature with this perfect fuel. 
 
 Gas stored in portable tanks is being used as fuel beneath 
 the boilers of locomotives and steamboat engines, and 
 indications point to its substitution for coal in the near future 
 on a still wider scale than at present. 
 
 Kirk Munroe. 
 
An Oil -Country Crater 
 
 " It is far grander than an eruption of Vesuvius that I once 
 travelled many miles to see ! " exclaimed a lady, as she pointed 
 in awe and admiration at the gigantic cornucopia of coal-black 
 smoke which towered gracefully thousands of feet into the 
 heavens from the top of a burning oil-tank. 
 
 Surely few spectacles can compare in grandeur with that 
 afforded by thirty-five thousand barrels of crude petroleum 
 aflame in a mammoth amphitheater of iron ; but such a 
 spectacle occurs as often as twice a year in the oil country, in 
 places where large quantities of crude petroleum are stored, 
 and in the case of nearly every such conflagration a flash of 
 lightning causes the outburst. 
 
 Storage tanks are constructed of huge sheets of iron riveted 
 together tier upon tier. They resemble gigantic seal-brown 
 cheese-boxes. A roof of wood covered with thin sheetE of 
 iron, having a slight upward slant toward the centre, keeps 
 out the storms. 
 
 If lightning strikes the tank, the gases which emanate from 
 the oil are ignited, and explode with a loud report. The roof 
 is blown off, and in an instant the great caldron of petroleum 
 has an aureola of marvellous beauty. 
 
 If the air is clear and still, the pillar of smoke arises straight 
 toward the heavens like a black waterspout, slowly expanding 
 as its lofty head touches the clouds. 
 
 The burning tank is often surrounded by many other tanks, 
 and unless prompt and vigorous action is taken the tank will 
 overflow in a short time ; a column of suddenly liberated gases 
 will flash thousands of feet into the heavens for an instant, 
 converting the whole neighborhood into a fiery furnace, and 
 the burning oil will pour over the edges of the tank and sweep 
 the ground in all directions, destroying everything in its 
 pathway, and firing the adjacent tanks. 
 
AN OIIv-COUNTRY CRATER. 
 
 47 
 
 To guard against such a disastrous overflow, the employes 
 of the owners of the tank work very hard indeed. If the tank 
 is not already surrounded by a deep trench and a high bank of 
 earth, a large force of men, furnished with picks and shovels. 
 
 Puncturing the Tank. 
 
 hurriedly dig the protecting ditch, piling the earth upon the 
 side more remote from the tank. 
 
 Meanwhile, the pumps at the nearest pumping-station are 
 hard at work drawing the oil from the bottom of the burning 
 tank through a pipe, and despatching it elsewhere for storage. 
 
 If apparatus for fighting fire is at hand, cooling streams of 
 
48 
 
 AN OIIv-COUNTRY CRATER. 
 
 water are directed against the red-hot sides of the tank b}^ 
 firemen who lie behind hastily erected shields of wood, through 
 which holes are cut for the passage of the hose-pipe. Mean- 
 while, horses and men have been despatched for the nearest 
 cannon. The gunners hastily load the brass field-piece, 
 ramming home a solid shot or a great slug of lead. The 
 muzzle of the piece is depressed so that a glance along 
 the barrel strikes the bottom of the great iron caldron, and the 
 bombardment begins. 
 
 Again and again the lower tiers of the tank are punctured 
 by the shot, and at each report slender streams of oil and 
 volumes of gas pour forth and burn harmlessly. This action 
 is taken to prevent or delay the dreaded overflow ; and the 
 ditch and embankment are intended to check the burning 
 streams of oil in their rush toward the other tanks, if the 
 overflow occurs. 
 
 The overflows are regulated by conditions of which 
 engineers have no certain knowledge. Nevertheless, it is 
 believed that the surface of the oil undergoes a constant change 
 while burning, the lighter parts being consumed, and the 
 heavier parts remaining in the form of a dense, heavy scum. 
 Powerful gases generated from the lighter parts below in the 
 great caldron are gradually confined by the thickening of this 
 surface scum, until, steadily accumulating and expanding by 
 reason of the constantly increasing heat above, they force their 
 way irresistibly upward. 
 
 These vapors, which rise from ordinary petroleum at as low 
 a temperature as forty-five degrees, are by and by brought into 
 contact with the under surface of the thick scum, which is 
 heated to a temperature of one hundred and fifty degrees, and 
 by reason of this sudden contact they expand with frightful 
 rapidity and power, causing an explosion that forces the thick 
 scum and a flood of light oil over the sides of the tank, and 
 drives every living creature out of the neighborhood. 
 
 The puncturing of the sides of the tank allows much of the 
 powerful gas to escape, and the overflow is either prevented or 
 
AN OII.-COIINTRY CRATKR. 
 
 49 
 
 made less formidable. One of the most dangerous features of 
 an overflow is the fact that, aside from a slight diminution 
 of the heat, the terrible visitation is as unheralded and swift 
 as the lightning flash that fired the crater. Firemen, pipe-line 
 employes and spectators who are anywhere within a thousand 
 feet of the tank flee for their lives when this explosion takes 
 place. 
 
 During the overflow of a thirty-five-thousand-barrel tank in 
 the Acme Refinery Yard at Olean, New York, in 1880, leaves 
 upon trees a quarter of a mile distant were shrivelled by the 
 intense heat. 
 
 Fortunately the terrible visitation continues but a few 
 seconds. If it lasted long, the destruction of property and loss 
 of life would often reach frightful proportions. 
 
 Olean has been for many years the largest storage point for 
 crude petroleum in the world. It is almost encircled by huge 
 iron tanks, each containing thirty-five thousand barrels of oil. 
 There are, I believe, four hundred or five hundred of them, and 
 they dot the hills and unpopulated districts about the town. 
 
 To the westward, along the banks of the Allegheny River, 
 lies one of the interesting sights of the oil country, a City of 
 Tanks. At this point the iron receptacles are stationed with 
 geometrical accuracy in long rows, like the houses of a town, 
 and the open spaces between the rows resemble streets. 
 
 Earle H. Eaton. 
 
The Mound -Builders. 
 
 In the states south of the Great I^akes there are a great 
 many artificial mounds. They differ much in size, some being 
 insignificant mounds a few yards in diameter, while others are 
 huge earthworks, like the one in Ohio called Fort Ancient, the 
 embankments of which extend nearly three miles in a straight 
 line, or like the Cahokia Mound in Illinois, just across the river 
 from St. Louis, which is one hundred feet high and covers 
 about sixteen acres. 
 
 The mounds vary as much in shape as they do in size. 
 Some are almost conical, with steep sides ; some are oval or 
 rectangular, with gently sloping sides, and some are mere 
 terraces of earth. 
 
 Others may be mentioned which are not properly to be 
 classed with mounds at all. They are simply figures in relief 
 of animals and birds, made by banking up the earth in such 
 a way as to form rude outline effigies. 
 
 Thus differing, it is evident that the mounds cannot have 
 been erected for one purpose, but that their uses, if not so varied 
 as their size and shape, were at least manifold. 
 
 From the earliest times of white settlement, the mounds have 
 been objects of speculation and inquiry, and many conjectures 
 have been made as to their origin and purpose, but for a long 
 time they were enshrouded in mystery. 
 
 When questioned as to their origin and use, the Indians 
 are said to have professed utter ignorance. The mounds 
 were in the country when they came, they said ; but when and 
 by whom and. for what purpose they were made, they did not 
 know. So these ancient monuments came to be regarded as 
 connected with a race different from the Indian, which had 
 previously occupied the country and for some mysterious reason 
 had left it. 
 
 Some thought that the builders of the mounds had been 
 
THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 
 
 51 
 
 exterminated by the fiercer and more savage Indian tribes ; 
 others thought it more probable that they had been driven away 
 to Mexico and Central America, where they were supposed to 
 have become so far civilized as to be able to construct the 
 wonderful temples and houses of that region. 
 
 But within recent years another and very different opinion 
 respecting the mounds and their builders has gained ground, 
 until it has nearly supplanted the old one. This is that there is 
 nothing so very mysterious about them after all. As students 
 came to study historical records a little more closely, it was 
 
 Serpent Mound in Ohio. 
 
 found that not only did certain of the Indian tribes know much 
 about the mounds, but that they were the actual builders of 
 some of them. 
 
 Moreover, when some of the mounds were dug into and 
 objects of European manufacture found far beneath the surface, 
 it became evident that these must have been built since 
 Columbus made his mistake and called our aborigines Indians 
 because he supposed he had landed on the shores of India. 
 
 At present it is held that many of the mounds were built b}^ 
 the tribes which were found in possession of the countr}^ when 
 it was discovered by Columbus, and that the older mounds about 
 which Indian tradition was silent were simply those which were 
 
52 
 
 THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 
 
 raised long ago by the ancestors of the present tribes ; in short, 
 that all the mounds are Indian mounds, and that to acquire a 
 knowledge of their uses and the meaning of their contents we 
 must study Indian habits and customs. To interpret these 
 habits and customs correctly is to read the riddle of the mounds. 
 
 Thanks, then, to the earnest labors of those who have 
 patiently explored the mounds themselves and of others who 
 have diligently studied living tribes and searched into musty 
 historical records, it is now possible to explain the chief motives 
 of those who raised the mounds, as well as the uses of many of 
 the curious implements found therein. 
 
 Doubtless much yet remains to be done ere the past can be 
 fully reconstructed, and we can claim to know all the secrets 
 of the Mound-Builders, if indeed so much as this is ever to be 
 hoped for. But, judging from the success of past years, the 
 future is full of promise. 
 
 It was soon found that a very large number of mounds were 
 simple burial-places. 
 
 While the notions held by our Indians respecting a future 
 state agreed in a general way, there were yet many minor 
 differences. All seem to have believed that the existence of 
 the individual did not cease with death, but that there was 
 another life more or less closely resembling the present one. 
 
 According to Indian ideas, the present body was closely 
 connected with this future existence, and all tribes paid great 
 attention to the proper burial of their dead. Many tribes 
 burned the bodies, as did the old Greeks and Romans. Some 
 deposited them upon scaffolds out of the way of wild animals ; 
 others laid them carefully away in caves ; while still others 
 buried them in the ground. 
 
 But whatever their form of burial, all tribes paid particular 
 attention to the care and protection of the bones. It was natural 
 that they should, for the bones are the most imperishable part 
 of the body, and with them is closely connected the idea of a 
 spirit, or soul, as we call it, crude though that notion is in Indian 
 philosophy. 
 
THK MOUND-BUILDKRS. 
 
 53 
 
 After much ceremony, and doubtless with much lamentation 
 and many tears, — for savages are very demonstrative in their 
 grief, — the body was placed on the ground or upon a terrace of 
 clay. Around it was gathered the property of the deceased, 
 especially those articles which were considered useful in his 
 after life, such as a water- vessel or two, some food, paint for 
 decorating the body, and so on. A fire was then built over the 
 whole, and after it had burned long 
 and fiercely, earth was brought in 
 baskets and heaped over all. / / 
 
 Thus the heap of earth above it I,. 
 
 served two purposes : to protect the y-' - , 
 
 remains, and as a monument. Doubt- 1 | " 
 
 less the richer and more distinguished | f 
 
 the deceased, the larger and more | I 
 
 imposing the mound. \ J 
 
 It was the habit of many tribes Bj^c 
 to bury their dead in the ground or 
 
 expose them on scaffolds until the flesh disappeared ; and then, 
 perhaps at stated intervals, to gather the bones together and 
 deposit them in an indiscriminate heap. On these occasions 
 their friends sacrificed such objects of value as were most 
 appropriate, or such as would best express their grief and love. 
 Thus the mounds often mark the last resting-place of a group of 
 persons who probably were connected by tribal or kinship ties. 
 
 Some tribes buried the bodies outstretched in a horizontal 
 posture ; others folded the limbs tightly against the body ; and 
 others still wrapped the bones into a compact bundle. Some 
 buried in stone receptacles ; others enclosed the body in bark 
 or in rudely woven blankets and clothing. 
 
 All of these methods appear in the burial-mounds. Fortu- 
 nately, when the bodies were cremated, in many cases the fire 
 only half did its work, and many of the objects sacrificed on 
 these occasions have been unearthed, as well as many of the 
 skulls and half-charred bones. 
 
 The list of objects taken from the mounds includes everything 
 
54 
 
 THK MOUND-BUILDKRS. 
 
 dear to the Indian mind. That it was believed the deceased 
 would need his weapons in the next world or on his way there 
 is evident from the numerous arrow and spear heads found. 
 Personal ornaments were deemed essential, and vast numbers 
 of shell beads, pearls, copper trinkets and stone carvings of 
 ceremonial or religious import appear in the mounds. 
 
 The Indian was always fond of athletic games as well as 
 those of more questionable morality, such as gambling; and 
 objects used in these games are of frequent occurrence. 
 Everything cherished by the Indian as a protection from the evil 
 and disease spirits, by which the Indian world was peopled, was 
 carefully included, and charms of various sorts are commonly 
 found with the bodies. 
 
 Many of the objects found in the mounds, such as the 
 carvings, are finely made, and show much taste on the part of 
 their makers. Before these had been carefully studied, it was 
 assumed that they were finer than anything the Indian 
 produced. This conviction strengthened the opinion that those 
 who made the objects could not have been Indians. 
 
 But those who maintained this opinion forgot that the first 
 and inevitable effect upon a savage people of contact with 
 civilization, is to deteriorate their manufactures. The savage, 
 finding the tools of civilization better, gradually ceases to make 
 his own ; and as he abandons them, he loses his old skill, and 
 becomes indifferent to beauty and nicety of finish. 
 
 When, therefore, the most artistic and best finished objects 
 from the mounds are compared with similar ones made by 
 Indians whose handiwork has not suffered by contact with 
 civilization, Indian art suffers little or nothing by the 
 comparison. 
 
 To raise such immense works as the Cahokia Mound must 
 have required great labor, and the size of the mounds has been 
 urged as a reason to suppose that Indians could not have 
 produced them. But it would require no more labor for a 
 comparatively few men and women to throw up a mound in 
 a long time, than for many to build it in a short time ; and no 
 
THK MOUND-BUII.DKRS. 
 
 55 
 
 I 
 
 ! 
 I 
 
 doubt to build such mounds as that of Cahokia must have 
 required many years, perhaps successive generations. 
 
 Moreover, the very rude methods employed in mound- 
 building are strikingly suggestive of Indian work. In the 
 case of certain mounds, it has been possible 
 to trace the successive baskets of earth as / •\ 
 
 they were dumped from the shoulders of the C ) 
 
 dusky carriers. '\ ( 
 
 In many places there are embankments of 
 earth in the shape of squares or parallelograms, ' '/ \ 
 the appearance of which too closely suggests j \ 
 
 rude fortifications for their purpose to be mis- 
 taken. They were defensive works, places of 
 refuge. Such in fact was Old Fort Ancient, 
 which may have been the work of generations 
 of Indians ; and within its ample interior were 
 probably gathered, in times of danger, the I \ 
 
 tribes that inhabited the neighboring valleys. \| 
 
 Evidences of village sites within its enclosure 
 indicate that in troublesome times villages were 
 established and occupied for considerable periods. Doubtless 
 grounds were prepared for the celebration of such feasts, 
 councils, games and ceremonials as always attended Indian 
 social, religious or tribal proceedings. 
 
 There is another class of mounds of various shapes and 
 sizes, which apparently were the sites of large houses, where 
 dwelt together several families of the same clan, or of council- 
 houses, which were partly for religious and partly for social 
 use. 
 
 Most curious of all are the Effigy Mounds in Wisconsin, a 
 group of which, found in Grant County, in that state, are 
 shown in the illustrations. These relief figures of beasts and 
 birds are often made on a gigantic scale, and from the nature 
 of their construction are necessarily so rude that they can 
 rarely be identified as of any particular species, and the 
 attempt to identify them has often resulted in false conclusions. 
 
56 
 
 THK MOUND-BUlIvDKRS. 
 
 Thus one mound in Ohio long passed as the effigy of a 
 mastodon or elephant ; and as this creature has been supposed 
 to be extinct for a considerable period, the effect of this 
 identification was to bring the existence of the animal down to 
 a very recent date, perhaps to historical times, or else to carry 
 the origin of this particular mound far back into the past. 
 
 Now, however, the proboscis of the animal, upon which 
 chiefly rested the theory of its elephantine nature, has been 
 determined to be a slide of earth. So the effigy passes from 
 the list of the marvellous to take its proper but prosaic place in 
 mound history as the figure of a bear. 
 
 As to the purpose of erecting these banks of earth in the 
 shape of animals, students appear to be pretty well agreed. 
 
 Most Indian tribes have myths by 
 
 ^ / I which they trace back their origin to 
 
 f " / certain animals, as bears, otters, 
 
 , \ snakes and birds. 
 
 / """""1 / \J The figures of these supposed 
 
 \ I \ ancestors became totem marks, and 
 
 are tattooed on the persons and 
 ^^^"^^ pictured on the houses and other 
 
 property of the Indians. The well-known totem posts of the 
 Haida Indians of Alaska are good examples. 
 
 Instead of contenting themselves by carving their totems on 
 their houses, weapons or other property, or painting them on 
 their skins, the Wisconsin tribes adopted a unique plan, and 
 raised on the bosom of Mother Earth their effigy monuments, 
 commemorative of their mythic ancestral beliefs. So inscribed, 
 nature has kindly assisted in their preservation ; and though 
 other and more costly monuments crumble away, the effigy 
 mounds live on, mute witnesses of the cherished beliefs of a 
 people whose past history is a cloudland of conjecture. 
 
 Prof. H. W. Hknshaw. 
 
Mammoth Cave. 
 
 On an interesting occasion I received as a gift a velvet case 
 containing a solid silver key inscribed, "From the Manager 
 and Guides of Mammoth Cave." It was a real key of the iron 
 door at the entrance of the great cave. 
 
 Thus it happens that I have the privilege of unlocking the 
 gate of the great cave for myself, and freely exploring its nooks 
 and corners ; and by the aid of this key I was able to prepare 
 the map of Mammoth Cave which accompanies this article, 
 and from which a faint idea may be had of its winding mazes. 
 
 One day I ventured to go alone into the gloomy caverns. 
 No more peril lurked along the familiar path through the 
 main cave than might have been met in almost any rock}^ 
 ravine. The powers of darkness may be safely defied by a 
 man armed with lamps, braided oil-rags, plenty of matches, 
 and a coil of magnesium ribbon. Fear was tempered to an 
 agreeable sense of awe. 
 
 No pause was made till the Star Chamber was reached, 
 with whose fantastic illusions every visitor to the cave is 
 familiar. These were reproduced as long as I desired, with 
 the discovery that the more intense the artificial light, the 
 brighter the stars seemed to shine in the blue sky overhead. 
 
 Not one visitor in five hundred advances to the grand 
 portions of the main cave that lie beyond ; they all turn back 
 to explore the minor branches. I went on. For a thousand 
 yards there is a succession of noble rooms, strewn with lime- 
 stone blocks of every size and shape, like the ruins of some old 
 castle of Giant Despair. Here are black chambers, appalling 
 in their funereal gloom. 
 
 Turning to the right I approached roaring' cataracts that 
 fall from a great height and instantly vanish in a profound 
 abyss. Beyond them arise the walls and pinnacles of the 
 Chief City, once the resort of Indian sagamores and dusky 
 
58 
 
 MAMMOTH CAVK. 
 
 braves, who left as relics their torches, sandals, arrow-tips and 
 battle-axes. 
 
 Here I made an experiment that taxed my nerves ; I blew 
 out my lamps. The black darkness seemed to become a 
 palpable and solid thing about me. Sounds were magnified ; 
 I heard the cave rats scamper over the rocks and the uncanny 
 bats flutter by. The throbbing of my heart was audible. A 
 whisper or a sigh was mysteriously wafted to the farthest 
 limit of the enormous dome. 
 
 The excited fancy conjured up all sorts of illusions in the 
 
 midnight gloom. Ghosts of the Mound-Builders came hovering 
 round. How thankful I was for the box of matches clutched 
 in my fist, a single one of which had power to put to flight an 
 army of goblins ! The match was .struck, its tiny blaze was 
 applied to the narrow strip of magnesium tape, the towering- 
 crags flashed again into view, and above them swelled the 
 proud arches of the Chief Cit}^ 
 
 The solitary intruder into this domain of imps and gnomes 
 
MAMMOTH CAVR. 
 
 59 
 
 was satisfied, and groped his way back safely to the hotel, and 
 the just reprimand awaiting him from the anxious manager. 
 
 The regular routes through the cave, one way, do not cover 
 more than tw^enty miles, while the total length of all known 
 avenues exceeds one hundred and fifty miles. Of the five 
 thousand tourists who annually enter the rocky, moss-grown, 
 vine-clad vestibule, very few wander from the beaten paths 
 which can be comfortably traversed in a day or two. 
 
 Almost all visitors hasten past Audubon Avenue, the first 
 right-hand branch from the main cave ; yet it equals in 
 grandeur many places over which people go into raptures. 
 It opens from a vast rotunda strewn with pipes, pumps and 
 vats, relics of the saltpetre works of 1812, from which our 
 warlike fathers obtained the means of making gunpowder. 
 
 From this avenue miners carted off countless loads of 
 nitrous earth, in doing which they exhumed gigantic skeletons, 
 and had many strange adventures. 
 
 If our visit is in winter we are amazed at the myriads of 
 bats that hang, head downward, in broad clusters as dense as 
 swarming bees. They look like sealskin sacks tacked 
 against the ceiling ; but when the guide rubs them with his 
 rough hand every tiny mouth flies open, changing the brown 
 robe to a scarlet cushion. 
 
 The road is smooth and level. All the rocky slabs are 
 skilfully piled into stone walls. And what are those newly- 
 raked beds, right and left, extending for hundreds of yards 
 under this noble arched way of fifty feet span ? We seem 
 to be in a garden man}^ acres in extent, stretching along as far 
 as the eye can reach, even when aided by chemical fires. 
 
 This is indeed a garden ; it is the Mammoth Cave mushroom 
 farm, on which six thousand dollars were spent under French 
 experts to get it into running order, and whence the manager 
 hopes to supply the markets of our American cities. A shaft 
 for ventilation and irrigation has been sunk from the outside. 
 
 That smaller opening from Audubon Avenue leads to the 
 long, winding channel of an ancient torrent, and is called the 
 
6o 
 
 MAMMOTH CAVK. 
 
 lyittle Bat room. Tread carefully under these low-browed 
 arches, blackened by the torches of the miners. It is a spot 
 from which heedless visitors are wisely excluded. 
 
 That ugly black crevice, toward which the floor so treacher- 
 ously slopes, yawns into a pit down which a reckless miner 
 
 once dropped his lamp. A sprightly young negro was lowered 
 to recover it. He returned empty-handed, and having, as it 
 was thought, lost his wits ; for he reported having seen a 
 marvellous temple, rivalling the wonders of the Arabian 
 Nights' Entertainments. 
 
 But thirty years later that very temple was approached from 
 another direction ; at one end of it is a cataract a hundred feet 
 
MAMMOTH CAVK. 
 
 6l 
 
 or more in height, while at the other end rise pillars eighty 
 feet high. And on the floor lay the rusty old lamp ! 
 
 Surprises continually await cave-hunters. Guides plodding 
 homeward one day from Croghan's Hall, the extreme end of 
 the Long Route, were astonished to see a volume of smoke 
 issue from a crevice in the Serpent Hall. They fled hastily 
 across Echo River. There they found workmen pitching a 
 boat and making a great smoke. 
 
 This gave them a hint that an undiscovered passage existed 
 between the Serpent Hall and the main cave. The reader will 
 find it indicated on the map ; but its true crookedness could 
 not be drawn on so small a scale. 
 
 In company with two guides, I completed a survey of 
 Ganter Avenue, as we call this passage. At first the guides 
 thought it to be about four miles long, and it certainly seems 
 so. But it is really eighty-five hundred feet in length, and 
 probably makes a twist as often as once in twenty feet. 
 
 It is a combination of three different avenues, on as many 
 different levels. The connection between them is made by a 
 stairway of one hundred solid stone steps, which we named 
 Rider Haggard's Flight, in honor of the author of King 
 Solomon's Mines. The avenue was originally from forty to 
 sixty feet high, and from six inches to ten feet wide. 
 
 By assiduous labor Mr. Ganter, the manager, had a stone 
 floor laid midway of the avenue where the crevice widens. The 
 pick and blast w^ere used wherever needed, so that now 
 any one who wishes to do so can thread the entire passage 
 easily. 
 
 Its main advantage is that it affords a safe exit from the 
 regions beyond the rivers, in case of an overflow. But even 
 yet portions of Ganter Avenue are so narrow that if two 
 persons meet, one must lie down and let the other walk over 
 him. 
 
 " What is there beyond that rocky ledge? " said I to one 
 of the guides, as we stood in River Hall. He replied that he 
 did not know, but would like to find out. 
 
62 MAMMOTH CAVE. 
 
 We found a wide, low avenue in which no footprints were 
 visible. Soon we had to go on our hands and knees, crawling 
 through the finest, cleanest yellow sand. It was plainly the 
 dry bed of an ancient river. F'or half an hour we pursued our 
 toilsome way, till suddenly we came out into Pensico Avenue. 
 
 I remained awhile at the Bottomless Pit, amusing myself by 
 throwing fire-balls into it. Being saturated with oil, the balls 
 
 floated to and fro on the water 
 and lighted up the walls of the 
 chasm grandly. Such chasms 
 are styled pits or domes, accord- 
 ing to the point of view. They 
 cut through all the levels of the 
 cavern. 
 
 The sandy way by which we 
 had come was one of the higher 
 and more ancient channels by 
 which this subterranean region 
 was formerly drained. The tor- 
 tuous passage called Fat Man's 
 Misery drained it at a later era. Still lower channels were 
 subsequently found, one opening midway into the pits, and 
 another draining them from the very bottom. 
 
 One of the guides made his way through this lowest 
 passage, and found that half a dozen of the pits were united 
 into one vast room which, by special permission of the 
 President, we named Harrison's Hall. 
 
 While trying to measure a pit not visited before, a ponderous 
 rock was dislodged just above me, and whirling by so close as 
 to graze my shins, fell more than a hundred feet with a crash 
 into the abyss. Other fragments followed it until the cavernous 
 echoes awakened were like a volley of thunder. 
 
 Speaking of echoes, let us take a ride on Echo River before 
 leaving the cave. It is worth a trip from Boston to Kentucky, 
 merely to float for an hour on those magical waters. The 
 phenomena have been frequently described ; but most visitors 
 
MAMMOTH CAVE. 
 
 63 
 
 are so in love with their own voices as to miss the finest effects 
 of all. 
 
 The guide rows us to exactly the right spot in this long 
 and deep underground river. Here the rocky arches meet the 
 water vertically, and without a shore ; but the waves lap 
 musically into a thousand little cavities as we row along. 
 
 This is only the gentle prelude. For now, while uttering 
 certain peculiarly mellow vocal sounds harmonizing with the 
 keynote of the passageway, the guide rocks the boat to and 
 fro, so that we must hold to the gunwales to keep from being 
 thrown overboard. And then begins a concert that, if not 
 interrupted, may last fully half an hour. 
 
 First comes a sound like the tinkling of silver bells. 
 I^arger, heavier bells take up the melody, as the billows caused 
 
 by the rocking of the boat strike the cavities in the wall. Then 
 it seems as if the chimes of many cathedrals had conspired 
 to raise in this strange place a tempest of sweet sounds. 
 
 The music dies away, and ghostly mutterings ensue. Many 
 voices seem to whisper, chatter and cry. They laugh, as if in 
 glee, and anon shriek as if in agony. Then all is silent. 
 We are about to speak, when the guide makes a sign to keep 
 
64 
 
 MAMMOTH CAVE. 
 
 still ; and we sit in curious expectation. I^o ! as if from some 
 deep recess hitherto forgotten, comes a tone tender and pro- 
 found; after which, like gentle memories, the mellow sounds 
 that had been heard before awake again, until River Hall 
 rings anew with the wondrous harmony. 
 
 Amid the alabaster flowers of Mammoth Cave the fancy 
 finds the mimicry of every blossom, from the modest daisy to 
 the flaunting sunflower. The floral avenues open to the public 
 have been marred by covetous or careless visitors. A rumor 
 had reached me of a secluded chamber, known as Charlotte's 
 
 Grotto, where the wildest flower 
 dream of the cave-hunter would 
 be realized. 
 
 On hearing a comely colored 
 matron accosted as Aunt Char- 
 lotte, I asked her if she knew of 
 the grotto, on the venture that 
 it derived its name from her. 
 
 " Law, yes, chile ! " said she; 
 "that grotto's named for me. 
 My poor dead husband found it and gave it my name. I 
 reckon one of my boys can take you to it." 
 
 Her reckoning was not amiss. I was taken to it ; and there 
 I found what seemed to be fringes of the night-blooming 
 cereus, clumps of lilies, spikes of tuberoses, drooping fuchsias, 
 wax-leaved magnolias, every gem of the greenhouse and 
 parterre ; only the snowy plumes were all of spotless alabaster. 
 
 H. C. HovKY. 
 
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