11. Name three products in the manufacture of which Detroit leads all other cities in the country. 12. What conditions have made Detroit a great center for commercial relations with Canada? BUFFALO About 1783 Cornelius Winne, a trader, built a little log store at the mouth of Buffalo River, which empties into Lake Erie. That was the beginning of Buffalo, the queen city of the lakes, the home to-day of more than four hundred thousand people. To understand the wonderful growth of this city we must go back to the days of the Revolution and see New York in those early times. Almost all the people of the United States then lived on the narrow strip of land lying between the Atlantic Ocean and the Appalachian Highlands. The high forest-covered mountains made a barrier that kept the colonial settlers from attempting to push out toward the west. But in New York State nature had left an opening between the mountain ranges, along the courses of the Hudson and the Mohawk rivers. Settlers had early followed these streams and built homes in their valleys. Beyond lay the trackless hunting grounds of the Indians--the great West. With the close of the Revolution things began to change. New York made a treaty with the Indians, whereby they agreed to sell large tracts of their lands. Pioneers pushed their way into the unknown wilderness of the western part of the state and found a beautiful fertile country. Their reports led hundreds to follow them. Soon central and northern New York were dotted with settlements. More and more immigrants kept coming, all seeking the land beyond the Appalachian Mountains. The great western movement of the nineteenth century had begun. [Illustration: A LOCKPORT LOCK] Winne had built his trading post before this westward movement reached Lake Erie. For some time he lived in his log cabin in the midst of the forest, with no neighbors except the Indians with whom he traded. But gradually other settlers came and built homes near him. By 1804 there were about twenty houses in the little settlement, which, for a short time, was called New Amsterdam. [Illustration: Barge canals shown by solid lines; Erie and other canals by dotted lines. NEW YORK'S CANALS] By 1812 the name had been changed to Buffalo, and the town had a population of 1500. That year war with England broke out, and in 1813 a body of British soldiers with their Indian allies crossed the Niagara River during the night, took the Americans by surprise, and burned Buffalo. Of its three hundred houses, just one escaped the flames. But nothing daunted, the men began to rebuild their homes, and in a few years no traces of the fire were to be seen.