Our course was along the St. Mary outlet, northwesterly toward White Fish Point, on the main south shore, projecting far out into the lake. We were hence carried miles away from sight of the famed-pictured rocks or of any land. Tending southerly and still westward, we steamed on over the dark waters, during a serene night, until daylight showed us the beautiful town of Marquette. Scarce seven years old, the fruit of the iron mining in its vicinity, it spreads its neat white cottages around the crescent of its bay and river on an amphitheatre of hills. The rail train destined to Bai de Noc, on Green Bay, and finished to Marquette Mines, in all some eighteen miles, was starting upon our arrival. Marquette, though so young, a mere group of cottages, fronting a wilderness, from its rich mines of the best iron, has become at once a scene of industry and large outlay of capital; while the beauty of its position and its unrivalled climate, surpassing all others on Lake Superior, have already made it the most attractive summer resort, as well for the pleasure traveller as the pulmonary invalid. Its climate, without the sea air, has a cool, silken softness, reminding one of Newport, Rhode Island. It is more equable and certain; the summer average is 66 deg., and the winter 41 deg.; while the lake wind and evaporation secure it from the rapid changes of the sea shores. Marquette is the lake port and entrepot of the short range of iron mountains which adjoin their sisters, known as the Porcupine Mountains, in whose depths lies the famous copper ore, not unmixed with silver and other precious deposits. This great mountain fortress extends from Marquette to Montreal River, beyond Ontonagon, the western boundary of the State of Michigan, in a line of about twelve to eighteen miles south of the lake, and often approaches two thousand feet in height, lifting its forest sides in constant view for more than two hundred miles. Leaving Marquette and the iron range at 7 A.M., on the 3d of August, we sailed for Portage, the first harbor in the copper mountains, arriving about noon. Portage is a shallow bay or mouth of the river of the same name, on the east shore of Keewaiwonah Promontory, or, as it is commonly called, Keweenaw Point. The mines and town of Portage lie at the mountains, about sixteen miles inland. A few huts were the only signs of settlement at the bay. Tugs landed the freight and passengers, and we soon left the wooded bank for the broad expanse of the lake, turning the head of the promontory, and at 5 P.M. reaching Copper Harbor on its northwest shore. Here we lay till morning. The village is small, at the base of a lower range of mineral mountains, spurs of the main chain.