years ago. Seventy-seven steamers, one hundred and eighteen barques, forty-three brigs, six hundred and thirteen schooners, fifty-three scows and barges, -in all, nine hundred and four vessels, carrying 218,215 tons, and employing ten thousand sailors, now ply be tween Chicago and the other Lake ports. In the winter, after navigation has closed, four hundred vessels may be counted in the harbor, frozen up safely in the ice. On a certain day of last November, a favorable wind blew into port two hundred and eighteen vessels loaded with timber.

Provided thus with the means of gathering in and sending away the surplus products of the prairies, the granary of the world, and of supplying them with merchandise in return, Chicago has, for the last few years, transacted an amount of business that astonishes and bewilders herself, when she has time to pause and add up the figures. The export of grain, which began in 1838 with seventy-eight bushels, had run up to six millions and a half in 1853- In 1854, when there were two lines of railroad in operation across the State of Michigan to the East, the export of grain more than doubled, the quantity being nearly eleven millions of bushels. From that time, the export has been as follows:

barrels, loose in the car or boat.

The

train or the vessel stops at the side of one of those seventeen tall elevators, by which the grain is pumped into enormous bins, and poured out into other cars or vessels on the other side of the building, the double operation being performed in a few minutes by steam. The utmost care is taken to do this business honestly. The grain is all inspected, and the brand of the inspector fixes its grade absolutely. The owner may have his grain deposited in the part of the elevator assigned to its quality, where it blends with a mountain of the same grade. He never sees his grain again, but he carries away the receipt of the clerk of the elevator, which represents his property as unquestionably as a certified check. Those little slips of paper, changing hands on 'Change, constitute the business of the "grain men " of Chicago. When Chicago exported a few thousands of bushels a year, the business blocked the streets and filled the town with commotion; but now that it exports fifty or sixty millions of bushels, a person might live a month at Chicago without being aware that anything was doing in grain.

Recently, Chicago has sought to economize in transportation, by sending away part of this great mass of food in the form of flour. The ten flour-mills there produce just one thousand barrels of flour every working day.

Saving in the cost of transportation being Chicago's special business and mission, and corn being the great product of the Northwest, it is in the transport of that grain that the most surprising economy has been effected. A way has been discovered of packing fifteen or twenty bushels of Indian corn in a single barrel. "The corn crop," as Mr. S. B. Ruggles remarked recently in Chicago, "is condensed and reduced in bulk by feeding it into an animal form, more portable. The hog eats the corn, and Europe eats the hog. Corn thus becomes incarnate; for what is a hog, but fifteen or twenty bushels of corn on four legs?" Mr. Ruggles fur

The business of pork packing, as it is called, which can only be done to advantage on a great scale, has attained enormous proportions in Chicago, surpassing those of the same business in Cincinnati, where it originated. In one season of three months, Chicago has converted 904,659 hogs into pork; which was one third of all the hogs massacred in the Western country during the year. This was in 1863, a year of abundance; and it has not been equalled since. Walking in single file, close together, that number of hogs would form a line reaching from Chicago to New York.

During the last three years, the number of cattle received in Chicago from the prairies, and sent away in various forms to the East, has averaged about one thousand for each working day. In one year, the last year of the war, 92,459 of these cattle were killed, salted, and barrelled in Chicago. Nevertheless, a person might reside there for years, and never suspect that any business was done in cattle, never see a drove, never hear the bellow of an ox.

A bullock is an awkward piece of merchandise to "handle"; he has a will of his own, with much power to resist the will of other creatures; he cannot be pumped up into an elevator, nor shot into the hold of a vessel; he must have two pails of water every twelve hours, and he cannot go long without a large bundle of hay. There is also a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, with an eloquent and resolute HENRY BERGH to see that cattle have their rights. Chicago has learned to conform to these circumstances, and now challenges mankind to admire the exquisite way in which those three hundred thousand cattle per annum, and that million and a half of hogs, sheep, and calves, are received, lodged, entertained, and despatched.

Out on the flat prairie, four miles south of the city, and two feet below the level of the river, part of that eight miles which our traveller found under water in 1833,- may be seen the famous "Stock Yards," styled, in one of the Chicago guide-books,

THE GREAT BOVINE CITY OF THE WORLD." Two millions of dollars have been expended there in the construction of a cattle market. The company owning it have now nearly a square mile of land, 345 acres of which are already enclosed into cattle pens, -150 of these acres being floored with plank. There is at the present time pen room for 20,000 cattle, 75,000 hogs, and 20,000 sheep, the sheep and hogs being provided with sheds; and no Thursday has passed since the yards were opened when they were not full,— Thursday being the fullest day. This bovine city of the world, like all other prairie cities, is laid out in streets and alleys, crossing at right angles. The projectors have paid New York the compliment of naming the principal street Broadway. It is a mile long and seventy-five feet wide, and is divided by a light fence into three paths, so that herds of cattle can pass one another without mingling, and leave an unobstructed road for the drovers. Nine railroads have constructed branches to the yards, and there is to be a canal connecting it with one of the forks of the Chicago River.

Nothing is more simple and easy than the working of the system of these stock yards. The sum of anguish annually endured in the United States will be greatly lessened when that system shall prevail all along the line from the prairies to the Atlantic. A cattle train stops along a street of pens; the side of each car is removed; a gently declining bridge wooes the living freight down into a clean, planked enclosure, where on one side is a long trough, which the turn of a faucet fills with water, and on another side is a manger which can be immediately filled with hay. While the tired and hungry animals are enjoying this respite from the

ward them, securely packed, to any part of the country. No doubt we shall soon have the exhilaration of reading advertisements of these town-makers, to the effect, that orders for the smallest villages will be thankfully received; county towns made to order; a metropolis furnished with punctuality and despatch; any town on our list sent, carriage paid, on receipt of price; rows of cottages always on hand; churches in every style. N. B. Clergymen and others are requested to call before purchasing elsewhere.

While this great business has been forming, Chicago itself has undergone many and strange transformations. The population, which numbered 70 in 1830, was 4,853 in 1840. During the next five years it nearly trebled, being 12,088 in 1845. In 1850, the year in which the railroad was opened to Elgin, the population had mounted to 29,963, and during the next ten years it quadrupled. In 1860, 110,973 persons lived in Chicago. In 1865, after four years of war, the population was 178,900. In this spring of 1867, if we include the suburban villages, which are numerous and flourishing, and which are as much Chicago as Harlem is New York, we may safely put down the population at 230,000. The closing of the war has not checked the growth of the city. We are assured by the moderate and conscientious "Chicago Tribune," that in 1866 the number of houses of all kinds built in Chicago was nine thousand; for the construction of which sixty-two millions of bricks were made from the clay over which the city stands. We learn, also, from a series of articles in the vigorous and enterprising "Chicago Republican," that in the young cities of the Northwest, which must ever flourish or decline with Chicago, there is the same astonishing activity in the building of

houses.

The city is no longer a quagmire. For many years after Chicago began to be a flourishing town, its business men aimed to make a rapid fortune, and retire to the banks of the Hudson, or to

the pleasant places of New England, and enjoy it. Who could enjoy life on a wet prairie, made passable by pine boards, through the knot-holes and crevices of which water could be seen, and where a carriage would sink three or four feet within two miles of the court-house? But about fifteen years ago, when the effect of the first railroad revealed the future of Chicago, the leading men said to one another: "This city is to be the abode of a million or more of the American people. Meanwhile it is our home. Let us make it fit to live in. Let us make it pleasant for our children." Seldom have men taken hold of a task more repulsive or more difficult, and seldom has human labor produced such striking results in so short a time. The mud and water for a long period were the despair of the people, since water will only run down hill, and part of the town was below the level of the lake. Planking was a poor expedient, though unavoidable for a time. They tried a system of open ditches for a while, which in wet seasons only aggravated the difficulty. Many hollow places

were filled up, but the whole prairie was in fault. It became clear, at length, that nothing would suffice short of raising the whole town; and, accordingly, a higher grade was established, to which all new buildings were required to conform. It soon appeared that this grade was not high enough, and one still higher was ordained. Even this proved inadequate; and the present grade was adopted, which lifts Chicago about twelve feet above the level of the prairie, and renders it perfectly drainable, and gives dry cellarage. It is as common now in Chicago to store such merchandise as dry goods, books, and tea in basements, as it is in sandy New York; and in nearly all the newer residences the dining-room and kitchen are in the basement. During the ten years while Chicago was going up out of the mud of the prairie to its present elevation, it was the best place in the world in which to develop the muscles of the lower half of the body. All the

newest houses were built, of course, upon the new grade, and some spirited owners raised old buildings to the proper level; but many houses were upon the grades previously established, and a large number were down upon the original prairie. The consequence was, that the plank sidewalks became a series of stairs. For half a block you would walk upon an elevated path, looking down upon the vehicles of the street many feet below; then, you would descend a flight of stairs to, perhaps, the lowest level of all, along which you would proceed only a few steps, when another flight of stairs assisted you to one of the other grades. Such, however, were the energy and public spirit of the people, that these inequalities, although their removal involved immense expenditure, have nearly all disappeared. The huge Tremont House, a solid hotel as large as the Astor, was raised bodily from its foundation and left at the proper height; and whole blocks of brick stores went up about the same time to the same serene elevation. To this day, however, there are places in the less important streets where the stranger can see at one view all the past grades of the town. The sidewalk will be upon the grade now established; the main street, upon the one that preceded the present and final level; the houses, upon the grade established when it was first determined to raise the town; while in the vacant lots near by portions of the undisturbed prairie may be discovered. The principal streets are now paved with stone, or else with that ne plus ultra of comfort for horse and rider, for passer-by and ladies living near, — the Nicholson pavement.

The people of Chicago have had a long and severe struggle with their river, and they have not yet made a complete conquest of it. The river and its two forks, as we have before remarked, so divide the town, that you cannot go far in any direction without crossing one of them. In old times the Indians carried people over in their canoes, and, for some time after the Indians had been wagoned off beyond

the Mississippi, a chance canoe was still the usual means of crossing. Ferries of canoes were then established, and, in course of time, the canoes expanded into commodious row-boats. Next, floating bridges were tried, much to the discontent of the mariners, who found it difficult to run in their swift vessels in time. One day, when a gale was blowing inward, a vessel came rushing into the river, and, before the bridge could be floated round, ran into it, cut it in halves, and kept on her way up the stream. The sailors much approved this manœuvre, and it had also the effect of inducing landsmen to reconsider floating bridges. Drawbridges then came in, seventeen of which now span the river and its branches. Better draw-bridges than these can nowhere be found; but the inconvenience to which they subject the busy Chicagonese" (so their rivals style them) must be seen to be understood. Unfavorable winds sometimes detain vessels in the lake, until three hundred of them are waiting to enter. The wind changes; the whole fleet comes streaming in; in twelve hours, three hundred vessels are tugged through the draw-bridges, which is an average of more than two a minute. At all the bridges, and on both sides of them, crowds of impatient people, and long lines of vehicles extending back farther than the eye can reach, are waiting. Now and then the bridges can be closed for a short time, and then tremendous is the rush to cross. Often, before all the waiters have succeeded in getting over, the bell rings, the bridge is cleared, and the draw swings open to admit another procession of vessels, each towed by a puffing and snorting little propeller. These are exceptional days, and there are other exceptional days in which the bridges are seldom opened. we were informed, that a business man who has any important appointment in a distant part of the town allows one hour for possible detention at the bridges. Omnibuses leaving the hotels for a depot a quarter of a mile dis

But