On the line of Amboy, Lansing, and Grand Traverse Railroad, the entire distance from Owasso to Lansing, twenty-six miles, is ready for the iron, except three miles. On the division from Lansing to Albion, thirty-six miles, the work of grading and furnishing ties is progressing, and some one hundred men at work. Between Owasso and Saginaw, thirty-three miles, arrangements are nearly completed to start the work. The work of grading and preparing for the iron is done by local subscriptions, of which $3,000 per mile has been subscribed and is being paid. The existence of copper on the shores of Lake Superior appears to have been known to the earliest travelers, but it has been only a few years since it has entered largely into Western commerce. But the country had long been a favorite resort for fur traders, and as long ago as 1809, and perhaps still further back, the Northwest Company (British) owned vessels on Lake Superior. This organization was at that period the great trading company of the region in question, the operations of the Hudson's Bay Company being confined chiefly to the region further north. At the period of which we speak, the bulk of the trading was done by means of birch canoes, some of them large enough to carry two or three tons. With these, the traders passed up to the Indian settlements in the fall, with goods, provisions, and trinkets, usually returning to the trading posts during the month of June with the furs which they had procured in exchange. Mackinac and the Saut were trading posts at an early day. At a somewhat later period, the Northwest Company had an agency on an island in Lake Huron, not far from the month of Saut river. The formation of the American Fur Company was of more recent date, that company dating its origin during the war of 1812, or soon after. Prior to the building of the canal, a number of steamers had been taken over the portage to Lake Superior, but so far as our knowledge extends, only one or two craft larger than a canoe were ever taken over the rapids, one of which was the schooner Mink. She was built of red cedar, on Lake Superior, about the year 1816, and was of some forty tons burden. She became the property of Mack & Conant, who had her brought down the rapids. In making the descent she suffered some injury by striking against a rock, but, notwithstanding this mishap, she lived long enough to ride out many a stormy sea, running for several years in the trade between Buffalo and the City of the Straits. Shubael Conant, Esq., at this day an honored citizen of Detroit, was one of the firm that purchased the Mink.