After the War of 1812 was over, the Northwestern Territory was held by our Government by a kind of military occupation for some twenty years, when, the Indian title having been extinguished, white settlers began to occupy Northern Illinois and Wisconsin.  The Sacs and Foxes, having repented of their surrender of this fair country, reentered it in 1832, but after a short contest were expelled and driven westward, and the working period commenced.  Large cities have sprung up on the Lake shores, and the broad expanse of Lake Michigan is now whitened by a thousand sails; and even the rocky cliffs of Superior echo the whistle of the propeller, instead of the scream of the bald eagle.

Perhaps the ship-owners of the Atlantic cities are hardly aware of the growth of this Lake commerce within the last twenty years, and that it is now nearly equal in amount to the whole foreign trade of the country.  Before entering on the statistics of this trade, however, we will give a brief description of the Lakes themselves.[A]

[Footnote A:  We are indebted for our facts and details to Lapham’s Wisconsin, Foster and Whitney’s Report, Agassiz’s Lake Superior, and works of similar character.]

Lake Superior, the largest expanse of fresh water on the globe, is 355 miles in length, 160 in breadth, with a depth of 900 feet.  It contains 32,000 square miles of surface, which is elevated 627 feet above the surface of the ocean, while portions of its bed are several hundred feet below it.  Its coast is 1500 miles in extent, with irregular, rocky shores, bold headlands, and deep bays.  It contains numerous islands, one of which, Isle Royale, has an area of 230 square miles.  The shores of this lake are rock-bound, sometimes rising into lofty cliffs and pinnacles, twelve or thirteen hundred feet high.  Where the igneous rocks prevail, the coast is finely indented; where the sandstones abound, it is gently curved.  Lake Superior occupies an immense depression, for the most part excavated out of the soft and yielding sandstone.  Its configuration on the east and north has been determined by an irregular belt of granite, which forms a rim, effectually resisting the further action of its waters.  The temperature of the water in summer is about 40 deg.

Lake Huron connects with Superior by the St. Mary’s River, and is 260 miles long and 160 broad; its circumference is 1100 miles, its area 20,400.  Georgian Bay, 170 miles long and 70 broad, forms the northeast portion, and lies within British jurisdiction.  Saginaw, a deep and wide-mouthed bay, is the principal indentation on the western coast.  The rim of this lake is composed mostly of detrital rocks, which are rarely exposed.  In the northern portion of the lake, the trap-rocks on the Canada side intersect the coast.  The waters are as deep as those of Superior, and possess great transparency.  They rarely attain a higher temperature than 50 deg., and, like those of Superior, have the deep-blue tint of the ocean.  The northern coast of Lake Huron abounds in clusters of islands; Captain Bayfield is said to have landed on 10,000 of them, and to have estimated their number at 30,000.