Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-06-18
Special Correspondence of the Spy.
FROM MINNESOTA.

Special Correspondence of the Spy.
FROM MINNESOTA
The MimesotanS in Good Spiits-Recoue,inq
fiom their RAGE to build Cities and Speculate
But they haze "G6seng Fecer"-The Big
Woods DeScr1bed-IHe Great FLood-Remark-
able Change IN the Fails Of st. Amhony-The
Cataract broken up and changed to Rapids
Politics IN Mimesota-Ihe Germans and the
Massachusetts, "1iwo Years Amendment."
MINNEAPoLIs, June 10, 1859.
see it stated in one of the Eastern papers
that business in Minnesota is under the
weather'-the writer intimating that we Min
nesotans are all in a very "blue" and sorrowful
and activity in Minnesota were never in
more wholesome and promising condition than
now. 1t is true that we are at the present time
much less afflicted with the bodybuilding ma
mia than formerly, and also that some of the
land spectators who have haunted and cursed
our beautiful State, have no better pecuniary
| prospects than they deserve. We do not now
see here so many of those Adventures with an
extrayagant habit of imagination, who at one
time were hunting up and down the country,
in confident expectation of buying claim for
a song, one day, and selling it the next for
fortune But we have more useful industry,
more farming, more promise Of solid prosperi-
ty, than ever before.
| The principal excitement here at the present
time is the Ginseng excitement Thousands
| of people are over i'll the Big Woods, digging
| ginseng This root is sold readily for cash or
| its equivalent, and it is found in such quanti-
ties as to make the digging profitable. Within
the week past, two hundred people, belonging
in Minneapolis and St Anthony, have been i'll
the Big Woods at work with the ginseng dig
gers, among whom the women are far more
numerous than the men. These Big Woods,
by the way, constitute very notable feature
of this northwestern world. They begin up
towards the pineries in the northeastern part
of Minnesota and extend like a long, irregu-
lar belt, to the border of Kansas. They
reach through the whole extent of Min
nesota touching tRs nerthgksst Go 9fg r1on it
belt of timber varies in width from three and
four miles to forty-five and fifty miles. 1t is
narrowest where it crosses the Minnesota riv-
| err The distance to it from Minneapolis is
some twelve or fifteen miles; and where we
pass through it in going into Mcleod county,
its width is about twelve miles. The sugar
maple abounds in it, affording u.s. yearly, hand
/ j
1t affords nothing so attractive to our people
as the ginseng; and among those engaged in
| digging 1t, there are not a few lawyers doc
tors, and quondam spectators
The newspapers have told you something of
the great flood that has visited the upper Mis-
sissippi. We have felt it here and above this
point, as an awful visitation Our bridges are
gone, all but the suspension bridge and,
| few days since, there were apprehensions that
lie tOn i'm n I,,,ti =. I'LL,
main secure. Thousands of acres OF cultiva-
ted bottom lands above us have been entirely
flooded. But the waters are beginning to sub
side, after doing immense damage.
| This tremendous visitation of raging water
| has made its mark on the Falls of St. Anthony.
In the year 1880, when Father Hennepin Wis
tied this cataract he described it as follows =
"The Falls are forty or fifty feet in hight and
are divided in the middle by rocky island of
pyramidal form" Since the bold Jesuit adj
yenturer and missionary first saw this region,
the Falls have retreated gradually up the
stream and their hight has diminished.
What was once the very beautiful Esprit Isl
land" dividing the cataract Gin the middle" is
| now five hundred or six hundred feet below, a
mere wreck OF It's former glory. During the
late fearful storm and flood the cataract under
went a very great and startling change. In
! the center, it suddenly receded about one hun
bred and fifty feet further up the river
and its form has undergone corresponding
change from the nearly direct line oftwo weeks
ago, to the arc of circle which it
describes at present In fact, the cat
aract known the world over as the
Falls of st. Anthony has, | fear, gone forev-
er; for, when the flood subsidies, there will
most likely be nothing left but foaming rapids.
| For some years, the hight Of the falls has been
only about sixteen or seventeen feet, with
stretches of rapids above and below. The re-
cent catastrophe appears to have obliterated
the Falls, and made the rapids continuous
Spirit Island, below, has wasted away more
than one-third during the present flood, and
many thousand tons of shelving rock, and
vast tables oflmestone in fragments have been
broken from the cataract precipice and rolled
down into the lower rapids.
In the political department of our life, there
is general stir and hum of preparation for
our next State election. The Republican
party has more than three-fifths of the
voters i'll the State; but the Democrats have
not less than seven-eights of the bold, devil
may-care rascality of our politics. The Re-
pubcans can carry the State, if they will I;
but the Democrats have the best trained or
ganization, and they have a regularly disci-
pinned army Of agents, composed of the nu-
merous federal officers and employees among
greatest overthrow they have ever felt or i'm
agined. Yonr Massachusetts folly, known as
the "Two Years Amendment" was seriously
felt here, and much disturbed the feelings and
hopes of the Republican putty. The admin
istration papers and politicians have made it
the occasion for being very loud and furious
against us. But, the German Republicans,
who are very numerous in Minnesota, and
who constitute a very large proportion Of our
best and most useful citizens are%ery far from
being either stupid or dishonest. And, as all
Republicans here repudiate, from principle as
well as from policy, all such things us that
Two Years Amendment" we hope to escape
the threatened disaster
The German Republicans Of st. Paul, held
a meeting last Thursday night ut which this
whole matter was discussed very fully They
adopted series of resolutions, protesting
against all such measures Of prescription, and
requesting our State Convention to take
grounds against them unequiyocay. One of
these resolutions reads as fUllows:-
"Resoired, That we shall adhere to the Repub-
lican party Of this State as long as that party
adheres to It's principles, but that ii the same
should, against our expectation by its silence,
endorse said Massachusetts Amendment de-
votion to Republican principles and selfres-
pect would force us to separate from that par
W."
But our German friends need not be appre-