Father Hennepin was the first white man who penetrated the wilds of Minnesota, and in 1680 he discovered the great falls of the Mississippi River, to which he gave the name of his patron saint, Anthony of Padua. The river just below the falls naturally attracted the attention of the French adventurers who came to trade with the Sioux, Chippewas and Dakotas, and the first white man who tarried and built a house here was a Canadian voyageur, who came in 1838. In 1841 a French priest established the Roman Catholic mission of St. Paul on the bank of the river, and thus the settlement was named. The admirable water-power of the falls, which, with their two miles of rapids, descend seventy-eight feet, afterwards attracted the attention of millers, lumbermen and other manufacturers, and this made the settlement of Minneapolis, ten miles westward and farther up the river, which began in 1849, the name meaning the "city of the waters." St. Paul grew with rapidity, being encouraged both by steamboat and afterwards by railway traffic; but Minneapolis, though started later, subsequently outstripped it. The two places, rivals yet friends, have extended towards each other, so as to almost form one large city, and they now have over four hundred thousand inhabitants. These "Twin Cities" are running a rapid race in prosperity, each independently of the other. St. Paul is rather more of a trading city, while Minneapolis is an emporium of sawmills and the greatest flour-mills in the world. Both are admirably located upon the bluffs rising above the Mississippi. St. Paul is situated upon a series of ornamental semicircular terraces that are very attractive, though in some portions rather circumscribed. Minneapolis is built on a more extensive plan upon an esplanade overlooking the falls, and extending to an island in midstream, and also over upon the opposite northern side of the river. The Falls of St. Anthony is the most powerful waterfall in the United States wholly applied to manufacturing purposes. The entire current of the Mississippi comes down the rapids and over the falls, the latter having a descent of about fifty feet. It is protected by a wall built by the Government across the river, to prevent the wearing away of the sandstone formation, there having been serious inroads made, while the surface is covered with an apron of planks over which the water runs, with sluiceways alongside to shoot logs down. However much Father Hennepin may have admired the beauties of this great cataract, there is no longer anything picturesque about the Falls of St. Anthony. Logs jam the upper river, where the booms catch them for the sawmills, and subterranean channels conduct the water in various directions to the mills, and discharge their foaming streams below. There is no romance in the rumble of flour-rollers and the buzz of saws, but they mean a great deal of profitable business. The force exerted by the falls at low water is estimated at one