The Buffalo suburbs are gridironed by railroads, and their terminals spread along the water-front and the sinuosities of Buffalo Creek. The grain elevators, as in all the lake cities, are a prominent feature, and they stand like huge monsters, forty of them, with high heads and long trunks along the creek and canal basins as if waiting for their prey. The fleets of vessels come over the lakes laden with grain from the West; tugs take them to one of these monsters, and down out of the long neck is plunged a trunk deep into the vessel's hold, which sucks up all the grain. It is stored and weighed and sent on its journey eastward. If this is by canal, the barge waits on the other side, and the grain runs down into it through another trunk; if by railway, the cars are run under or alongside the elevator and quickly filled. Then the lake vessels are laden with coal for the return voyage. While an American gives these elevators scant attention, being used to them, not so the foreigner, who regards them with the greatest curiosity. Thus wrote Anthony Trollope about them: "An elevator is as ugly a monster as has yet been produced. In uncouthness of form it outdoes those obsolete old brutes who used to roam about the semi-aqueous world and live a most uncomfortable life, with their great hungering stomachs and huge unsatisfied maws. Rivers of corn and wheat run through these monsters night and day. And all this wheat which passes through Buffalo comes loose in bulk; nothing is known of sacks or bags. To any spectator in Buffalo this becomes immediately a matter of course; but this should be explained, as we in England are not accustomed to see wheat travelling in this open, unguarded and plebeian manner. Wheat with us is aristocratic, and travels always in its private carriage." The extensive commerce of Buffalo is varied by iron manufacturing, breweries, distilleries, oil refineries and other industries, but the elevators, coal chutes and railroad and canal business seem to overshadow everything else. The city has wide tree-lined streets, and is most handsome with its many fine buildings. There is an extensive system of attractive parks connected by boulevards; broad streets lined with well-built residences, and in the newer parts the level surface is filled with ornamental homes, some most expensively constructed and elaborately adorned. The well-kept lawns and gardens are fully open to view, and Delaware Avenue, thus bordered, is one of the most attractive streets. On the Main Street, among many impressive structures, is the huge Ellicott Square Building, said to be the largest office-building in the world, housing a business community approximating five thousand persons. There are also two public Libraries and many handsome churches.