8. New Orleans, built on a bend of the Mississippi shaped like a crescent, is called the Crescent City. Its situation makes it the metropolis of the south-west, and the seat of a large foreign commerce. It is the greatest cotton market of the world, and the chief sugar market of the United States. Memphis and Vicksburg are im

portant river ports.

LESSON XLIX.

THE UNITED STATES. THE NORTH CENTRAL STATES AND TERRITORIES.

1. The North Central States and Territories are twelve in number. With the exception of Michigan, which sheds its waters into the Great Lakes, they are all included in the basin of the Mississippi and its vast tributaries. The greater portion of these States consists of prairie land, bare of trees but covered with natural grasses. It has usually a deep rich soil, and when tilled yields abundant crops. There are hills in some parts

as we recede from the river valley east and west as in eastern Kentucky and western Nebraska. The southern part of Missouri is also undulating, rising into mountains towards the borders of Arkansas.

2. The climate of such a vast region of necessity varies much, but it may be described generally as one of extremes; the winters, especially in the more northern states, are arctic in their severity, whilst the summers are hot.

3. The greater part of the North Central States lies in the wheat belt. This is the finest wheat region of the world, and millions of bushels are raised every year for export. Towards the south, Indian corn is a staple product, and cotton and tobacco are also grown. Oats, also, and hemp, are extensively grown in the Middle States. Illinois produces more wheat, maize, and oats, than any other state. Kentucky yields the most tobacco

and hemp, Iowa the most flax. Michigan and Ohio are great fruit states.

4. Cattle-grazing and sheep-farming are extensively followed in these States, and millions of pigs fatten on the nuts and acorns in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Missouri. Many thousands of hogs are cut up every year. The fat is melted into lard, the hams are cured, and the other parts are smoked or salted, and packed in casks for export. The cities of Chicago and Cincinnati are noted for "pork packing."

5. The mining and manufacturing industries receive less attention in these States than agriculture; yet there are abundant minerals in some of the States, and many articles for home use are extensively manufactured. Missouri abounds in coal and iron: it has two mountains, Pilot Knots and Iron Mountain, made up entirely of iron ore. A valuable coal field extends through Illinois and Indiana into Kentucky. Coal is also abundant in Ohio and Iowa. Iron and copper are a source of great wealth in Michigan. The copper mines of Michigan, near the lake of the same name, are the richest in the world. Here are also to be seen the remains of ancient copper mines and mining tools, and it is evident that a race of people well advanced in civilisation occupied or visited this part of the country at some distant period in the past, before its occupation by the Indians. Where Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa join is a great lead region. Dubuque is its commercial centre.

6. The chief factories are "flouring mills," saw mills, and agricultural implements and machinery works. Ohio ranks first in the Union for agricultural implements, and third for manufactures generally.

7. Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati are the three great cities of these states. They owe their wealth and importance mainly to the vast export trade which has sprung up of late years. Chicago, on Lake Michigan, is a city of recent growth. There are men yet living who remember when the site of Chicago was a swamp, and could have been bought for a few dollars. In 1830 the town was organised. In 1870 the population was up

wards of a quarter of a million. In 1871 the city was almost totally destroyed by fire; but it has now been entirely rebuilt, and its present population is more than half a million. 66 Chicago is the great storehouse for the grain crop of the West, and its annual export of wheat and maize alone amounts to 42,000,000 bushels. Its trade in lumber and live stock is also immense."

8. St. Louis, a town of 300,000 inhabitants, has also an immense trade in grain, cotton, and iron ore. It is the railroad centre of the Mississippi valley, and is fast becoming the metropolis of the steamboat traffic of the mighty river which flows past its wharves. The "flouring mills" of St. Louis surpass in extent those of every other city of the Union. Cincinnati, with its beautiful suburbs, stretches for ten miles along the banks of the Ohio river. It is a busy manufacturing and commercial

centre.

9. Kentucky contains one of the greatest natural curiosities of the world; this is the Mammoth Cave, near the Green River. This cavern extends nine miles into the earth, and to visit all its parts one would have to travel a hundred and fifty miles or more. A stream called the Echo River runs through it, and in this river, which is shut off from daylight, live eyeless fish.

LESSON L.

THE MISSISSIPPL

1. "The Mississippi-' the father of rivers'-gathers his waters from all the clouds that break between the Alleghanies and the farthest ranges of the Rocky Mountains. States larger than kingdoms flourish where he passes, and beneath his step cities start into being more marvellous in their reality than the fabled creations of enchantment. His magnificent valley, lying in the best part of the temperate zone, salubrious and wonderfully fertile, is the chosen muster-ground of the most

various elements of human culture brought together by men, summoned from all the civilised nations of the earth."*

2. The Mississippi has its origin in a cluster of small lakes in the pine-clad hills of Minnesota, not far west from Lake Superior, and not far south from the sources of the St. Lawrence. In the grove-studded, rolling prairies of Minnesota it presents a succession of picturesque scenes. The Falls of St. Anthony are cele brated for their surrounding scenery, and the Minnehaha Falls, a few miles farther up the river, form a romantic and beautiful cascade, with a perpendicular pitch of forty-five feet, flowing over a projecting rock, which permits a passage underneath.

3. Before it leaves Minnesota it receives the waters of the Minnesota River on the right bank, and farther southwards, as it rolls on between the diversified and flower-bedecked prairies of Iowa and Illinois, many large streams, which in Europe would be considered magnificent rivers, contribute to swell the volume of this the greatest river of the North American continent. A little above the flourishing town of St. Louis is the confluence with the mighty Missouri.

4. The Missouri is formed by the junction of three short rivers, all of which take their rise on the east of the Rocky Mountains, in the State of Montana. Many streams from the same mountains swell the waters, so that at about 600 miles from its source it averages more than 300 yards in width. At this point, about 2,500 from its junction with the Mississippi, are great falls, which intercept all navigation.

To the north-east and

east it flows through a wild savage country, the home of the buffalo and other game, and on through the rolling prairies of Montana, till, on emerging from that State for Dacota, it is joined by the Yellowstone River, which flows out of the beautiful lake of that name.

5. We now enter on a dismal, most peculiar region of brown flats, only allowing of the growth of a few

* Bancroft.