It has a fine situation at the southwestern corner of the lake, on a broad, level plateau, with a densely timbered country behind it. The St. Louis River, which rises in northern Minnesota, and which comes tumbling over a series of cascades formed by the high land between Lake Superior and the Mississippi, spreads itself out into a shallow bay in front of the town, and reaches the lake over a sand-bar. Government has been erecting breakwaters to control the current of the river, with the expectation of deepening the channel, which has about nine feet of water; but thus far the improvements have not accomplished the desired end. The bar is a great impediment to navigation, and its existence has had a blighting effect on the once fair prospects of Superior City. Dredges are employed to deepen the channel, but those thus far used are small, and not much has been accomplished. The citizens of Superior are confident that with a liberal appropriation from government the channel can be deepened, and that, when once cleared out, it can be kept clear at a small expense. Superior has suffered severely from the reaction which followed the flush times in 1857. A large amount of money was expended in improvements,--grading streets, opening roads, building piers, and erecting houses. Then the war came on, and all industry was paralyzed. The Southern proprietors were in rebellion. The growth of the place, which had been considerable, came to a sudden stand-still. The situation of the town, while it is fortunate in some respects, is unfortunate in others. It is in Wisconsin, while the point which reaches across the head of the lake is in Minnesota. The last-named State wanted a port on the lake in its own dominion, and so Duluth has sprung into existence as the rival of its older neighbor. The St. Paul and Superior Railroad, having its terminus at Duluth, lies wholly within the State of Minnesota, and comes just near enough to Superior to tantalize and vex the good people of that place. But the citizens of that town have good pluck. I do not know what motto they have adopted for their great corporate seal, but _Nil Desperandum_ would best set forth their hopefulness and determination. They are confident that Superior is yet to be the queen city of the lake, and are determined to have railway communication with the Mississippi by building a branch line to the St. Paul and Superior Road. Our party is kindly and hospitably entertained by the people of the place, and to those who think of the town as being so far northwest that it is beyond civilization, I have only to say that there are few drawing-rooms in the East where more agreeable company can be found than that which we find in one of the parlors of Superior; few places where the sonatas of Beethoven and Mendelssohn can be more exquisitely rendered upon the pianoforte, by a lady who bakes her own bread and cares for her family without the aid of a servant.