We spent the following day--Sunday--in Chicago which is perhaps the most remarkable city in the world for its rapid growth. Its history dates back to the year 1803, when Fort Dearborn was erected. Abandoned at the beginning of the war with Great Britain in 1812, it was destroyed by the Indians; but rebuilt in 1816. The town was organized in 1833, and the first charter of a city passed by the Legislature, March 4, 1837. A number of outlying suburbs of Chicago were annexed by popular vote so that the present area of the city covers 181 square miles; its population being about 1,400,000. When we consider the fact that in 1871 a great fire, sweeping over the business center of Chicago, laid more than 2,000 acres in ruins, and then reflect on the city of to-day, rebuilt in a style of great solidity and magnificence, with its innumerable handsome buildings of stupendous proportions--its six hundred beautiful churches--and its vast number of educational institutions, we cannot but admire the spirit of enterprise which evolved such wondrous prosperity in little more than two decades. The destructive fire constituted the largest conflagration of modern times. Commencing by the overturning of a lamp in a district built up almost exclusively of wood, about nine o'clock in the evening of October 8, 1871, it continued through that night and the greater part of the next day. Finally, it was checked by the explosion of gunpowder, whereupon it exhausted itself by burning all there was to ignite within the confined space. Although 18,000 houses had been reduced to ashes, ten years thereafter all traces of the calamity had disappeared. It would be impossible to give a description of all the fine buildings which have made Chicago famous. The principal hotel--probably the largest in the world--is the "Auditorium," having its dining halls on the tenth floor. All the conveniences that modern ingenuity has excogitated--in accordance with the requirements of the present era--have been introduced into this huge structure. It includes a theater having a seating capacity for 6,000 spectators. The park system of Chicago is one of the most extensive in the world. Jackson and Washington Parks belong to the south division, whereas the western section inside the city limits comprises three; known as Humboldt, Garfield, and Douglas Parks. Their ornamentation is varied by superb flower-beds, fountains, statues, and monuments. Lincoln Park--including a zoological garden, and being romantically situated upon the lake shore in the northern portion of the city--constitutes a delightful place of amusement for pleasure-seekers. The parks are all connected by boulevards--some of them 200 feet wide--encircling the city, and affording a continuous drive of thirty-five miles.