The Grey Man was at his desk studying over the expenditure of a matter of several millions of dollars for a new canal at the “Soo.” He turned slowly--grey suit, grey tie, grey eyes, grey beard, grey hair--all beautifully blended. He seldom speaks first. He is always fighting to be courteous, yet the days are ten hours too short for him. “I want a new idea,” I opened bluntly. “I want something new in marine--something that will make people sit up and take notice, as it were. Can you help me?” He swung slowly about in his chair until his eyes rested upon a picture on the wall. It was a picture of the old days on the Lakes. My eyes, too, rested on the old picture. It reminded me of things, and I kept pace with the thoughts that might be his. I saw him, more than half a century before, the stripling son of a ship’s carpenter, swimming in the shadows of the big fore-’n’-afters that were monarchs before steam came--glorious days when ninety-eight per cent. of vessels carried sail, and sailors dispensed law with their fists and bore dirks in their bootlegs. Later I saw the proud moment of his first trip to “sea”--and then, quickly, I noted his rise: his saving dollar by dollar until he bought an interest in a tug, his monopolisation of it later, his climb--up--up--until---- “I’m busy, very busy!” he broke in quietly. “But say, did you ever think of this? Did you ever build a city of the lumber we carry each year, populate that city, feed it with the grain we carry, and warm it with our coal? You can do it on paper and you will be surprised at what you find. It will show you more graphically than anything else just what the ships carry. Try it. You’ll be interested.” I have kept that idea warm. Now I am going to use it. For probably in no better way can the immensity of the lumber, grain, coal, flour, and package freight traffic of the Great Lakes be given. Imagine, then, this “City of the Five Great Lakes.” We will build it, we will people it, feed it, and heat it--and our only material, with the exception of its inhabitants, will be the cargoes of the Lake carriers for a single season. And these carriers? If you should stand at the Lime Kiln Crossing, in the Detroit River, one would pass you on an average every twelve minutes, day and night, during the eight months of navigation; and when you saw their number and size you would wonder where they could possibly get all of their cargoes. The cargoes with which we will deal in this article will be of lumber, grain, flour and coal, for these, with iron ore, constitute over ninety per cent. of the commerce of the Inland Seas. [Illustration: A Raft of Five Million Pulp Logs on the North Shore of Lake Michigan.]