"Here the great currents, which are the natural lines of _movement_ for the people, commerce, and productions of half North America, concentrate around a single point. No other place has the same advantage of _radial lines_. Quebec is relatively on the Atlantic. The upper end of Lake Superior is comparatively on an inhospitable land. Chicago is at a lateral point on the south end of Lake Michigan,--three hundred miles from the main channel of commerce. At Mackinaw concentrate all the radial lines of water navigation in the upper lakes. Which will be seen, if we take the following distances of direct navigation from this point to the principal points on the upper lakes: "From Mackinaw to Fon du Lac (west end of Lake Superior), 550 miles; to Chicago, 350; to east end of Georgian Bay, 300; to Detroit, 300; to Buffalo, 700; to Gulf of St. Lawrence, 1,600. "Here are two important points to be observed. Any city which, by competition, or the rivalry of production, or the power of wealth, can be supposed to interfere with the growth of Mackinaw, must arise on Lakes Michigan or Superior; for _there_ only can be any commercial mart to receive and distribute the products around those immense bodies of water. But in consequence of the form and surface of those lakes, no lines of transit to the waters of the St. Lawrence can be made so short or cheap as the water transit through the Straits of Mackinaw. The concentration of products will, therefore, be ultimately made at Mackinaw, for all that immense district of country which lies around the upper lakes. Again, it will be seen that as the water transportation to that point is the best, so the radial line from that point to the Atlantic by water, is much the shortest. A steam propeller, leaving any one of the principal points on the upper lakes for either Buffalo or the Gulf of St. Lawrence, must, as compared with Mackinaw, pass over the following lines of transit, viz., From Fon du Lac (west end of Lake Superior) to Buffalo, 1,250 miles; Chicago, Ill., 1,000; Mackinaw, Michigan, 700; Fon du Lac to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 2,150; Chicago to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 1,900; Mackinaw to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 1,600.