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SOLITUDES IN A SETTLED COUNTRY. Back in Fishbourn Canyon, away from the river, there is the quiet and wild beauty of the wilderness.

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tuous wanderings of a lost thing. When one of Nature's great forces is uncontrolled, strange things happen, and the Mississippi cannot said to be better than half controlled, for it sweeps almost at will wherever its course is easiest, and everything yields it the right of way or comes to grief. Once at least every year it shows its scorn of the bonds we have so far set upon it, it, and strikes

strange, erratic blows,

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as if of retaliation, at at the hands that have imperfectly welded its chains. Never has its capricious meandering been opposed in real effort to control it, and prophecies are plentiful that it will prove a most unruly captive. But canalization will be necessary on a part of the route below St. Louis, both to shorten the distance and to cut out some of the great bends of the stream, where many thousands of those tons of sediment are scoured from the banks by the water in its passing.

The problem is even greater than that of the Panama canal, for its like has never been attempted, and conditions are of such an uncertain character. But if the interests of Chicago and St. Louis alone were to be considered, it would pay to push the enterprise to completion.

OLD INDIAN LOOKOUTS.

Chicago stands behind her offer to give the magnificent Drainage canal to the government as a part of the route, if the government will complete the waterway to St. Louis. And this great canal, thirtytwo miles long, twenty-two feet deep and with minimum width of one hundred and sixty-four feet, cost Chicago $50,000,000.

But, as suggested, the cost of the great undertaking is to be defrayed in part at least, by income from the sale of waterpower, which will be created by construction along the lines planned. The Sanitary District set this example, and the plans include this important feature. There is untold energy locked in the waters of the rivers which have been carrying craft in a desultory way, ever since the time when La Salle's own little boat nosed through the current. The same

Notch Cliff, near Elsah, Ill., from which the Indians watched La Salle navigate

the Illinois.

power which helped Tonty defend Starved Rock against the hostile Indians in 1680, is still idling its way past the base of the grand old island monolith where he made his fort. The mills of the gods are not more resistless, though not more slow and still and mysterious than that wonderful force that lives in the rivers and waits and waits for opportunity. Only in the riotous annual carousal, when literally drunk

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FAMOUS STARVED ROCK.

and so to the Atlantic and, via the Panama canal, to the Pacific, but the waterway will provide a passage for lighter draft war vessels, to or from the lakes. The ports of the gulf and of South America will come into direct touch with Memphis, St. Louis, Chicago, Duluth, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo. The great middle west will control the trade of the entire west coast of South America, after the Panama canal is completed, provided the deep waterway from the Lakes to the Gulf is constructed. Otherwise it will be Japan, Germany and England, which will exercise commercial sway over this vast empire to be opened up. The wonderful growing trade with the Orient will not be the monopoly of our coast cities. The tremendous agricultural and mineral resources of our whole middle country, which are simply incomputable, will pour out to the world, and a return flood of wealth will flow in upon the country. If

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Scene of historic siege of La Salle's men in 1680-85.

with its own power, it gives terrifying evidence of its presence, do we even realize a part of the water's awful might. And to gather and conserve and use this power, now wasting itself away in alternate sleepy uselessness and debauch, is one of the great purposes in view.

A prophetic glance into the future, at what may be in store for the Mississippi valley, when the canal is built, is intoxicating. Not only will the great traffic on the Lakes have a water outlet to the Gulf

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CLOSE IN UNDER OLD STARVED ROCK. Where the Chevalier de Tonty made his long fight against the savages during the absence of his chief.

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Novelties from the Auto Shows

By David Beecroft

HE day when it is necessary to dispute with the Gotham cab driver either before the starting of the trip or at the conclusion of it regarding the fare charged is nearing its end, thanks to the taxicab, or more properly the taximeter cab, which vehicle is provided with a recording instrument on the dial of which is shown the exact fare or tariff due. A German inventor, a couple of years ago, perfected the first taximeter, which instrument, housed in small metal box a foot long, half a foot wide and four or five inches deep, performs the manifold duty of reckoning the fare the cab earns while traveling on the street, while

total mileage of the day and the exact mileage of each trip, and finally making a record of mileage and fares for the benefit of the cab owner. In brief, the taxicab comes as a detective prodigy between the cab owner and the cab driver on the one hand and between the cab driver and the traveling public on the other hand.

On the conventional cab the taximeter instrument is carried at the left of the driver's seat, where its dial is readily read by the driver and passengers; and its internal clockwork and distance recording mechanisms are absolutely enclosed, being foul and weather-proof, the metal case with its metal seals making it impossible for the driver to interfere with

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