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Show I Great Lakes Tour Power From Niagara Turns the Wheels of Industry. PreDaxad by National Geographic Society, Washington, D. C. WNU Service. BY CAR or by steamer, a trip around the Great Lakes is a tour of American commerce and industry. If they only lay there, basking In the sun or raging with storms, our inland seas would be impressive. im-pressive. But they have served America Amer-ica as no inland sea has served another anoth-er land. At every corner of the Great Lakes, and because of them, busy cities have risen. On the banks of a hundred hun-dred tiny creeks commerce has planted Its loading piers or elevators. Our bridges crossed our lakes as ore before they crossed a river. Scarcely a skyscraper whose framework has not wallowed in the swell of our "Big Sea Water" before combing our urban skies. The story of our Great Lakes is one of unbelievably cheap freight rates, of marvelously active freighters, of fur and lumber, iron and grain. In the days when the principal crop of America was cold-bred fur, the St. Lawrence was the gateway to our Midwest. Mid-west. Fur was the incentive of Nico-let, Nico-let, Joliet, Marquette and La Salle, to whom the watershed between the Great Lakes and the wide Mississippi basin was familiar while the British were still settling the seacoast. Around the lakes, fur ceded its primary pri-mary place to grain or lumber. Hiawatha's Hi-awatha's "forest primeval" crashed before be-fore Paul Bunyan's saw and ax. Then came Iron! At the northern end of the lakes whole rust-red mountains of ore stood ready for the steam shovels. Coal moved north and iron south, a combination combi-nation providing profitable return cargoes. car-goes. Wherever a creek reached the south shore of Lake Erie, coal and ore were tossed back and forth by car tipple tip-ple and "clamshell." Buffalo a Busy Port. Buffalo is a busy gateway to the Great Lakes region. Protected from early traffic competition by the Niagara falls, which were later to furnish its light and power, this rich Inland port stands at the east end of the upper lakes and the west end of the only convenient break in the Appalachians. Had an Indian interpreter not made a mistake, it would have been called "Beaver," a startling but suitable name for this busy creek-side port. A dozen railways now obscure the fact that Buffalo is not a creature of the plains but an aquatic city, founded on the creek that still sustains it. Its real greatness began on October 26, 1825, when the Seneca Chief started down the 4-foot-deep Erie canal. On June 22, 1933, at Chicago, salt water from the Gulf of Mexico was blended with Lake Michigan water when a flotilla of Mississippi river barges, bearing spices, coffee, and sugar, su-gar, arrived at Lake Michigan. The 9-foot channel does today what river and glacier did more than once in the past links the Great Lakes with the Gulf. It took 260 years for Jo-liet's Jo-liet's dream of a Lakes-to-Gulf waterway water-way to come true. Four routes to tidewater now exist: the Illinois waterway, with a 9-foot channel ; the New York State Barge canal and its branch to Oswego, both with a depth of 12 feet; and the St. Lawrence canals, in which there are 14 feet of water. The deepest artificial link is the new Welland canal, which not only has 30 feet of water on the sills of its spectacular locks, but also accomplishes the steepest lift 326 feet in 25 miles. While retaining Its pre-eminence in the transfer of grain, Buffalo has since become our milling metropolis. In October, 1839, when the brig Osceola Os-ceola brought 1,678 bushels of wheat from Chicago to Buffalo, It took seven sev-en days to unload the cargo. Buffalo's 29 elevators could now unload that much wheat in less than nine seconds. Yet, were they empty, it would take eight eight-hour days to fill them to their capacity of 50,000,000 bushels. Bulk wheat rides from the head of Lake Superior to the foot of Lake Erie for about three cents a bushel. But flour can't be handled In bulk like so much ore or limestone, and, as a consequence, con-sequence, milling has moved east to a center within 000 miles of which lives 80 per cent of our population. Cleveland's Cuyahoga Flats. Like Buffalo, Cleveland owed Its early greatness to a creek. Chic secretaries, sec-retaries, high up In the 700-foot tower of Cleveland Union station, look down in spirit as in truth on Cuyahoea "Flats." From a tower owned by railways they can easily identify the site of ' a canal bed Inn ied under n railroad riglu of way. W the most striking unit f Cleveland's ambitious "City Within a City" they survey the ugly valley which interrupts the plateau along which the spacious city sprawls. The Cuyahoga is but one of many crooked, slow, slimy, smelly little rivers, riv-ers, iridescent with oil, edged with rust, and crossed by dull black bridges, which obsequiously enter the Great Lakes. Theoretically, the best place to study lake shipping would be from a viewing stand off Alpena, with most of the 2,500 Great Lakes vessels, aggregating 3,000,-000 3,000,-000 tons capacity, weaving a fabric of traffic up and down the lakes. What city has influenced modern mankind more than Detroit? Its businesslike busi-nesslike stoves and oil-burning furnaces fur-naces have supplanted the romantic hearth. Its drugs have aided healing around the globe. Its electric refrigerators refrig-erators have helped banish the iceman. Most revolutionary of all, it put horse power under the feet of man. Where Automobiles Are Made. Most of America's automobile factories fac-tories are adjacent to the Great Lakes. With 50,000,000 tons a year of iron ore and coal being borne south and north along the Detroit water front, and millions mil-lions of tons of limestone from Calcite and Alpena passing its wharves, Detroit De-troit seems the natural center for automobile au-tomobile production. But the motor magnates emphasize the human side. In King, Olds, Leland and Ford, the city had a group of ingenious, restless brains whose value was immeasurable. North of Detroit, there is limestone and salt, and enough fish to fill solid cars, which are rushed through to Chicago Chi-cago and New York. There are even at times special whitefish planes which fly the food to distant cities. But with such exceptions as Port Huron, Bay City, Alpena, Calcite, Muskegon, and Gary, the lake shore in summer is largely a playground. Upper Michigan pictures Hiawatha as a golfer laying a supercourse which starts at Menominee, Escanaba, and Manistique ; continues at delightful Blaney Park and St. Ignace before crossing cross-ing to Mackinac island and back to Ce-darville Ce-darville near Les Cheneaux islands ; plays on both the Michigan and Ontario On-tario shores of the "Soo" ; drives past Newberry and Munising to Marquette and Ishpeming, in the iron country ; detours into the copper territory at Calumet Cal-umet and Houghton-Hancock ; takes a look at the "Big Sea Water" at Ontonagon On-tonagon before turning from woods to irons at Ironwood and Iron river, and then rounds homeward to Menominee via Crystal Falls and Iron Mountain. Lake Michigan's influence on climate may be measured by orchards. From the cherries of Traverse City to the peace orchards near South Haven, the Michigan shore is one vast fruit belt. The cool lake breezes from the west retard the blossoming and so prevent damage by frost. Cherryland of Wisconsin. Thanks to the tempting influence of Green Bay, over whose portage Father Marquette and Joliet first reached the Mississippi, Door county is Wisconsin's cherryland. In the canning factory at Sturgeon Bay neatly aproned operatives wait for the red cascade of cherries to come pouring down into their machines. What between cherries and summer resorts, Door county is a busy place, and from the observation towers of Peninsula Pen-insula and Potowatoml State parks one looks down on a wonderland of forest and water, tourists' resorts, and cherry orchards decorated with signs reading, "Pick your own, one cent a pound." It is a long jump westward from Cherryland to Duluth-Superior, the huskiest twins on the lakes. Their rivalry ri-valry keeps alive local spirit, but their combined strength Is of world-wide importance. im-portance. Two sand pits enclose the most picturesque pic-turesque and remarkable harbor of all those around our inland seas, with 49 miles of frontage and 17 miles of dredged channels. To the northwest a bluff rises so steeply from the water that those who approach over the two main highways suddenly look over the edge of the plateau upon this expanse of city and harbor. As long as grain Is grown and the Mesabl mines hold out, Duluth-Superior will rank high among the ports of the world. As far as grain goes, they lag far behind Fort William and Port Arthur; Ar-thur; but down from t He plateau comes a never ending procession of ore trains, and back go the coal (rains lhat carry heat lo the homes and fuel to the factories fac-tories of our great Northwest. Duluth-Superior, Duluth-Superior, as far as tonnage goes, ranks second only to New York. I |