logs floating down to the mills. Arrived there, they are drawn up, one by one, as if by magnetic attraction, and in the twinkling of an eye, almost, they pass out below in smooth, ribbon-like boards.
One cannot help thinking as he makes the "grand round" of the city by carriage (which the livery-men expect all visitors to do), across the magnificent suspension bridge, circling Nicollet Island—which is a very bouquet of beautiful homes—and over the river again, between the Falls of St. Anthony with the artificial wooden aprons that have converted them into a sort of sloping dam, and the delicate Bridal Veil, beyond which rise the pleasant grounds and buildings of the university, that Minneapolis is remarkably free from the unbeautiful scenes of apparent poverty and wretchedness that mar so many cities.
You may dismount and go about on foot down all the narrower back streets, and still you will find houses that are true homes and people with cheerful faces. Here are shown the value of influence and the effect of surroundings: every builder of no matter how small a cottage racks his brain for some pretty architectural design, and lays out his diminutive grounds with an inspiration caught from his wealthier neighbor. And in the arrangement of the magnificent merchants' blocks with their immense plate-glass windows there is evinced an artistic taste and skill unsurpassed, and rarely equalled, in other Western cities. You are tempted into what appears to be a vast conservatory, where all manner of plants are growing and blossoming, miniature fountains are spouting, birds singing in gilded cages and goldfishes floating in their great glass aquariums. Beyond and a little higher up—for the floor is terraced like a lawn—you catch glimpses of statuary and fine paintings, not crowded together, but advantageously displayed in exquisite little bowers of green leaves or wreathed with vines. And you learn that you are in an art-dépôt, and that everything here is subject to your purse. A salesman with very little of the air of a salesman comes forward and receives you somewhat after the manner of a host receiving guests, and entertains you as agreeably as though that were a part of his contract with his employer; which possibly it is, as it helps to bring "trade," the abhorrence of aristocratic minds, almost within the limits of the fine arts.
Minneapolis is the pet and pride of the North-west, the goal toward which many merchants and professional men in small country towns are looking for retirement in middle life or when they have accumulated a competency. Its admirers regard it with a pride and affection that border on tenderness, no doubt because it offers so many beautiful things, things that touch the finest perceptions, to the eye of the beholder—really offers so persistently that you cannot go away with out a look at its treasures. One does not think of it simply as a city, but all its tempting resorts, the lakes and Fort Snelling and Minnehaha, with which it is intimately connected by rail- and carriage-ways, enter into the account.
It is trite to describe Minnehaha. Our philosopher gave it merely a passing glance, and remarked, as he did every half hour, "I was here in '59: I took it all in then."
True, there is not a wide scope for the eye to travel over, but Longfellow took in great draughts of inspiration here, out of which grew an image that will last longer probably than the exquisite creation itself; for the effects of frost and the constant wearing of the water now and then cause the dislodgment of large pieces of rock that fall thundering into the boiling pool sixty feet below. We were informed, upon the authority of one whose knowledge was personal, that the scene has changed greatly in the past twenty years.
The grandeur of Niagara grows upon the spectator hour by hour: so does the beauty of Minnehaha. It is not grand, nor sublime, nor awe-inspiring—simply beautiful. The ledge of rock forming that part of the rim of the great basin over which the water pours projects so as to leave a space of several feet behind the falls. Six feet below this rim or roof is a circular gallery backed by a
