A large amount is smelted at Lake Superior, where charcoal is used. The forests in the vicinity of the mines are rapidly disappearing. The wide-spreading sugar-maple, the hardy yellow birch, the feathery hackmatack and evergreen hemlock are alike tumbled into the coal-pit to supply fuel for the demands of commerce. The charcoal consumed per ton in smelting costs about eleven cents per bushel. For reducing a ton of the best ore about a hundred and ten bushels are required; for a ton of the poorest about a hundred and forty bushels, giving an average of $13 per ton. The cost of mining is, as has already been stated, about $2 per ton. To this must be added furnace-labor, interest on capital employed, insurance, freight, commission, making the total cost about $35 a ton. As the iron commands the highest price in the market, it will be seen that the iron companies of Lake Superior are having an enormous income. Some men who purchased land at government price are on the high road to fortune. One man entered eighty acres of land, which now nets him _twenty-four thousand dollars per annum_! A railroad runs due west from Marquette, gaining by steep gradients the general level of the ridge between Superior and Michigan. It is called the Marquette and Ontonagon Railroad, and will soon form an important link in the great iron highway across the continent. It is about twenty miles from Marquette to the principal mines, which are also reached by rail from Escanaba, on Green Bay, a distance of about seventy miles. The ore is generally found in hills ranging from one to five hundred feet above the level of the surrounding country. The elevations can hardly be called mountains; they are knolls rather. They are iron warts on Dame Nature's face. They are partially covered with earth,--the slow-forming deposits of the alluvial period. There are five varieties of ore. The most valuable is what is called the specular hematite, which chemically is known as a pure _anhydrous sesquioxide_. This ore yields about sixty-five per cent of pure iron. It is sometimes found in conjunction with red quartz, and is then known as mixed ore. The next in importance is a soft hematite, resembling the ores of Pennsylvania and Connecticut. It is quite porous, is more easily reduced than any other variety, and yields about fifty per cent of pure iron. The magnetic ores are found farther west than those already described. The Michigan, Washington, Champion, and Edwards mines are all magnetic. Sometimes the magnetic and specular lie side by side, and it is a puzzle to geologists and chemists alike to account for the difference between them. As yet we are not able to understand by what subtle alchemy the change has been produced. Another variety is called the silicious hematite, which is more difficult of reduction than the others. It varies in richness, and there is an unlimited supply.