Superior

Southward of Lake Superior stretches, for more thau a hundrod milos, a wildorues3 brokonby but few mining settlements of lumbermen's canips. Tho eastern hall' of this región was most absurdly attached to Michigan on her admisión :is a State with intont to consolo hor for the loss of Toledo, conceded totho power rathor than the right of Ohio. Tho western half forniR a part of Wisconsin. Ultimately Michigan and Wisconsin will codo it all to form a ncw State nearly of the size and conformación of Tennessee, which will probably be named Superior. This región is tho seat of tho only considerable copper production as yet developod in onr country - -a production which has thus far absorbed many moro dollars than it has rcturned. A very few companies have profitcd by copper-miuing, but many have lost. We trust that, with ripened experionco and greater accessibility, the copper district will yet prove a sourco of wcalth. The product is the finest in the world, the copper being quite genorally alloyed with silver, which gives it unusual value. Many specimens of pure silvor havo been obtained, but no silver mines of decided value havo yet been discovered ; though just across the Lake, on a petty islot near the shore, there has recontly beon oponed what appears to bo one of the richost voins of native silver ever yet discovered. But by far the most important mineral product of the región is iron. The iron of the Marquette district is marvollously pure and abuudant. üf tho scant 2,000,OOOtons of pigiron smclted in this country in 1871 very nearly one-third was fused trom this ore ; nearly 1,000,000 tons having been minod and sent away. The fumaces of north-eastorn Ohio and northwestern Pennsylvania are largely supglied with the Marquette ore, though it costs thom an averago of $8 per ton, or $12 for tho ore that ruakes a ton of pig metal - the yield being nearly or quite 66 per cent. If the metal wero not remarkably good, and largely required for conversión into Bessemer and other steel, so high a price could iiot be aft'orded. But Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiuna also largely produce iron from the Marquette ore, and aro rapidly increasing the product. But for the railroad from Marquette to Esoanaba, on a bay of Lake Michigan, it would not have been possible to export half of this volume of ore. That railroad, early constructed tbrough a pathless and Bwarupy wilderness, has greatly aidod the development of our iron industry, and has, we trust, provod a good investment to its enterprising si ockholders. Wc Iearn that all the iron mines yet opened Havo satisfactory orders for all tho oro they can supply through 1872. But southwestward of the Marquette district, on the Menominee llivor, which here forms the boundary between Michigan and Wisconsin, there is another iron district iarger than the former, and claiinedtobe equally rich, pure and facile, ■which is very soon to be openod by the extensión thereto of the Chicago and Northwestern Kailroad, now not many miles distant. Thia región is mninly owned by the Fortage Lake & Superior Ship Canal Company. lts ores have been tboroughly testod and pronounced entirely freo from phosphorus, sulphur and arsenic - in short, containing tho best iron. It is calculated that large quantities of oharcoal pig will be niado on the ground olearing it of the heavy iinber which now covers it, and that the alinost fabulous growth of the Marquette product, from 1,500 tons of ore in 18Ö5 to nearly 1,00000 tons in 1871, will be eclipsed by the dovelopment of tho more accessiblcj and more extensivo beds and hillocks of the Menominee. So let the Northwest duplícate its blast furnac'es at once, and prepare to supply itsslf abundantly with the ehoicest home-mado iron, eschowing futuro doDcndenco on oither Great Bri( CljePic!jiptttfp$