The physical difference of the two cities is mainly one of situation. Minneapolis spreads out on both sides of the Mississippi over a plain, from the gigantic flouring-mills and the canal and the Falls of St. Anthony as a centre (the falls being, by-the-way, planked over with a wooden apron to prevent the total wearing away of the shaly rock) to rolling land and beautiful building sites on moderate elevations. Nature has surrounded the city with a lovely country, diversified by lakes and forests, and enterprise has developed it into one of the most inviting of summer regions. Twelve miles west of it, Lake Minnetonka, naturally surpassingly lovely, has become, by an immense expenditure of money, perhaps the most attractive summer resort in the North-west. Each city has a hotel (the West in Minneapolis, the Ryan in St. Paul) which would be distinguished monuments of cost and elegance in any city in the world, and each city has blocks of business houses, shops, and offices of solidity and architectural beauty, and each has many private residences which are palaces in size, in solidity, and interior embellishment, but they are scattered over the city in Minneapolis, which can boast of no single street equal to Summit avenue in St. Paul. The most conspicuous of the private houses is the stone mansion of Governor Washburn, pleasing in color, harmonious in design, but so gigantic that the visitor (who may have seen palaces abroad) expects to find a somewhat vacant interior. He is therefore surprised that the predominating note is homelikeness and comfort, and he does not see how a family of moderate size could well get along with less than the seventy rooms (most of them large) which they have at their disposal.