Two great divisions are recognized in the forest distribution of the United States,--the Atlantic and the Pacific. These are separated by the great interior plains and prairies of the continent. The line of cleavage between timber land and prairie is nowhere so defined that it does not have inlets of prairie land in the forest region, and stretches of wooded land in the plain, but the Mississippi River is in general the western boundary of the Atlantic forest area, and the states of the Great Lakes are all included in this section. Within this eastern forest there are several belts of different kinds of woods. Two of these are in the lake states. The northern belt, largely of white pine mixed with red or Norway pine, stretches from New England across New York State and northern Pennsylvania to Wisconsin and the eastern part of Minnesota, and is broken only by Lake Erie. This tract has been the chief source of supply for the United States. South of this white pine belt runs a central hardwood section, where are particularly valuable forests of hickory, maple, oak, and walnut. This section extends from Niagara eastward into New York, and westward across the northern parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. As it was in the natural line of migration both from the rivers of the south and the lakes of the north, this central belt was cut long before the pine sections were touched. It fell out in this way, therefore, that for three-quarters of a century these states have been in the main agricultural, rather than forest lands. Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota have had a long history of lumber prosperity. The first railroads of Michigan were welcomed by the settlers as a means of transporting lumber from the logging-camps and sawmills that were springing up all through the central part of the state. The northern industry was taken care of by the lake vessels, which took the lumber from the ports on the shore through the straits of Mackinac. Lake Superior, which had long been a centre for the shifting fur trade, was settled permanently for the first time by the men who were brought by lumber interests. The Mackinac region, the Saginaw and St. Croix rivers, and many smaller streams became the scenes during the winter months of a busy and picturesque activity, and have been associated ever since in fact and fiction with the romance as well as the profit of the lumber industry. As Rochester in the East had begun with a sawmill, so Duluth and Superior in the West came into being as supply stations for the rivermen, and their prosperity depended in 1870 so largely on the lumber traffic that the contest over the railroads, which each place wanted on its side of the state line, was determined by the interests and preferences of the lumber kings.