Cedar Falls gazette. [volume] (Cedar Falls, Iowa) 1860-1895, 1865-10-13
Horace greeley In Mlnnesota.

aware, has been on q visit to st. Paul.
Wequote as follows from his letter t.
the Tribune.
"The climate of Minnesota Is hel
chief bugbear; and, while l have littlt
fellow-feeling with the chap who con
| fessed to a prejudice against the equa
! tor, own up to slight repugnance t.
4O' below zero. And yet the climate
with most MinnesOtiaHs is their strong
point. Nearly all have met assure me
! that they never passed Winters so de
| lightfuliy i'm milder ATTITUDES as here
several spent a winter here as an eXper
| iment before migrating, and found thu
dry atmosphere, bright skies and steady
cold, so exhilarating that they could no
thenceforth live elsewhere. Severa
have assured me that they feel the colo
far less here than they did in Contra
Ohio, New England, or even in New
York City. They say that the Winter
days are almost uniformly still and sun
ny, and that a man comfortably clat
does not find the cold unpleasant. They
admit, however, that there are q few
days each Winter at once cold and win
dy, and these are most agreeably passed
stove. 2# 'a
| There are hundreds here-perhapi
! thousands--who came tosavc their lives
and all insist that the climate is an an
tidote to pulmonary affections and
cure for consumptives in the early stag
es of their disease. Many are well here
who believe they would have died years
ago had they remained on the seaboard
| On the other hand, it Is said that ner'
vous disorders, heart-complaints, &c.
are aggravated-that the atmosphere il
too stimulating for persons thus affect.
ed / only report what l hear. l can.
not doubt, however, that this is region
remarkably favorable to health and
longevity.
Against this IL to be set the fact that
Timber il less abundant and less excel
lent than at the East, which, in a cOun-
try where good fires are q necessity, Is
lamentablc. There is wood in the mar
row intervales of most of the rivers and
smaller streams, and these are quite
common, though their flow Is scarcely
SO copious as with us. Thus the Mime
sofa formerly st. Peter's), which rises
partly in Dakota, and runs first south
easterly, then north-easterly across the
southern half of the State, falling into
the Mississippi between Fort Smelling
and Mendoza, half way from here to
st. Paul, is not so large, after its course
of $50 to 400 miles, as the Mohawk, Mer-
rimac or Saco. neither of them half SO
long or draining half so large an area.
And this is by far the largest of the
tributary streams which have their
course mainly in this State. On the
other hand, the lakes of Minnesota are
estimated at ten thousand; and this, If
every body of noniiowing water which
does not dry up in summer Is to be call
cd lake, is doubtless far within the
actual number. acknowledgements
which are barely more than giant
springs-lakes hundred miles around,
and lakelets of scarcely half an acre
dot the State in every part, but espec-
tally throughout the northern portions,
in profusion no where paralleled. OF
its 81, 900 square miles or SO 900, 900 acres
I Judge that nearly or quite tenth are
permanently covered by water. Min
nesota is grand plateau, ranging from
900 to 1000 feet above the ocean level,
wherein the Mississippi, the st. Law
renee. and the Red River of the North,
have their ultimate sources. There are
some stout hills in the remoter sections;
but the high table land is seldom brok-
en- save by the streams, which traverse
it through ten to three hundred feet be-
low the level of the adjacent county
These intervales are in good part wood
ed; and tue plains are diversified at
moderate though unequal distances by
belts Of low, scrubby brushwood, with
tough, ragged, wind-rocked Oaks rising
occasionally above the thick copse,
wherein Poplar and White Birch disa-
grceably abound. OF course, there are
extensive tracts of valuable timber, es-
pecially Of Pine, mainly in the North,
1t Ia is in nth nr
quarters; but l cannot resist the inn
preston that good timber grows slowly
and scrubbily on the broad, wind-swept
table-land-that the climate is less ge-
NAL to trees than TO men. ! shall be
very happy to find, Oh fuller acquaint-
ance, this impression mistaken.
"The Mississippi is the most salient
feature of the landscape. Rising who'll
ly within this State, it has course OF
over 500 miles within it or upon it's cas-
tern border, during which it absorbs
some ten or twelve considerable rivers,
with innumerable smaller streams, and
becomes sufficiently capacious to be
navigable at all seasons for steamboats,
of ample burden. The Falls of st. An
thony, at this point, present the first
absolute barrier to navigation but the
current hence to st. Paul &c miles by
water, 8 by land is rapid and shallow
so that most boats stop at that city
which has, in fact, difficult bar OF
shallow some miles below 1t. There
were three or four small boats on the
river above this point; but the extreme
low water Of the last two dry seasons
discouraged their owners, so TINT they
managed to get them somehow below
the Fall, and left the river above to raft
and liat-boats, though they might now
be glad to have them back again.
:. But rivers, unless of the first quail
ty, are going out of fashion. The Miss
issippi itself will soon be regarded as
an old fogy, too slow for this fast age
A railroad to run down its valley, cross
| ing it at Hastings, and again near Wi
mona, is already being graded, and viii
doubtless soon be in operation, taking
q good share of the river transportation
and nearly all its travel. Then TIN
Minnesota Central just opened hence t
Northfield, and in few days more t.
run to Faribault, is to be rapidly push
ed due South till, in connection will
affiliated roads, it forms through lin
| to st. Louis, Alb miles from these Falls
answering to over 800 by the river
These will be rival roads, but the worl'
is wide enough for both. The manager
/ OF the SeHtrAl cApecC 10 DEluS uiiue
1000 bushels of Wheat per day for tn
first forty days of their running; which
for fifty miles of new road, through
country but eight or ten years old, an
never yet one-quarter plowed, is no
bad. Another road that starts from 81
Paul and aims ut the Pacific has alread
been two years open to this point, an
now runs thirty miles further north
west, expecting within year to b
open forty miles further to st. Cloud
the thriving depot of the overland trad
with the Red River and the British sci
tIement thereon, and so with our new
Undiscovered Gold region on the Sas
katchewan and in the adjacent Rock
Mountains. Another abroad is to ru
up the Minnesota, besides one alread
| reaching westward from Winona, an
several others. Congress has dealt ger
erousIy with this State in the matter
endowing Railroads with lands, yet nc
Iimprovidently, since the roads al
needed to make the lands available
Without them, Wheat must be grow
for 40 cents per bushel in sections wheI
with them it will be worth %. Onl
build the roads, and both the Natio
and the Treasury will be enriched b