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Show COMMERCE OF THE GREAT LAKES. " Not many of us in the desert have any idea of the magnitude .of the commerce carried on in the summer and autumn on the great lakea v. The Marine Review gives a little Idea by giving what has been done In the way of shipbuilding on the Jakes in the last three years. In 180 J sixty vessels were built' of which forty-eight were bulk freighters capable of carrying in the single trip 230,750 gross tons of ore. Forty-seven ships were built In 1904. of which twenty-two twenty-two were bulk freighters having a carrying capacity on single trips of 214,200 tona The orders placed in 1905 for delivery In 1906 included thirty-nine vessels, of which thirty-four are bulk freighters, having a carrying capacity In a single trip of 888,000 tona Through Sault Ste. Marie and Detroit more freight is moved every year than goes to the city of New York. The fact is that the northern part of Michigan and Minnesota Is being transferred to the iron smelters around Lake Michigan and Lake Erie. The iron is dug with steam shovels, loaded on trains, dumped into ships, and so perfect is the work that a ship of 7000 tons is loaded In about two or three hours. This year the rush is greater than ever, the steel output out-put Is larger than ever, and when one comes to figure the men working in the mines, the iron, mines and coal mines, the men at the smelters and rolling mills, men at the coke ovens, men on the ships, that carry this ore from Lake Superior, to ports on Lake Erie and Lake Michigan, they make an army more splendid tlfan any army that ever in uniform and with dancing flags gave light to the world. The iron and steel Industry of the United States is a creation of the last fifty years, and perhaps gives a better Illustration of the majesty and the power ofour country than any other industry, though the harvesting of the wheat is just now requiring the labor of a million of men; the cotton crop Is almost as large, and the corn crop Is .superior .su-perior to all the othera At the same time In the West the mining of copper, and silver and gold Is something so majestlo In its propor- ' tion that the foreigners looking on, must be convinced that since the beginning of time no other nation ever had such resources or ever put such Working forces in motion as our ' own country. It is getting to be very much of a thing to be worthily j T called an American citizen. I |