It is little wonder that men doubted the practicability of Mr. Tower’s schemes; it is the more worthy of admiration that he dared to undertake them amid the almost insuperable obstacles. To plant a mining establishment ninety miles north of Duluth and seventy miles west in a direct line from Lake Superior in a region that had no intermediate connections with even the outskirts of civilization seemed an impossible task. The country was densely wooded, with only very small streams and impassable swamps breaking the forest stretch. Provisions, supplies, tools,--everything needed for the camp must be taken either in midwinter over frozen ground and snow when the temperature was usually forty degrees below zero, or in summer on the backs of men and in Indian canoes over a most circuitous route. A railroad must be built to carry the ore, and dock and harbor facilities must be provided on Lake Superior. All this Charlemagne Tower undertook at the age of seventy-three, and carried through to a wonderful success. He built a railroad from the mines to Two Harbors on Lake Superior; he selected Two Harbors as the best place for his docks, roundhouses, machine-shops, and sawmills; and he opened up his mines in the iron district. In August, 1884, the railroad was finished and the first shipments of ore were made. These shipments were shrewdly distributed among manufacturers of three states leading in iron industries, Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, instead of being sent to a single dealer. They met with instant favor from all the companies. The quality of all the northern ranges had been found to be very fine. The percentage of metallic iron contained in the best red hematites shipped from the Michigan mines had been over sixty per cent; this first shipment from Minnesota contained sixty-eight per cent, and with its success the future of the country was assured. The country opened up rapidly, the railroad was carried to Duluth, and a town sprang up about the docks at Two Harbors. In the first year 68,000 tons were shipped; three years later the output had jumped to 400,000 tons, and Minnesota had been transformed in four years from a non-mineral district into one of the foremost iron markets of the United States. Fifteen hundred men were working in its mines, and five thousand were directly or indirectly employed by the industry. In 1887 the Mesabi Range began to be opened up, and together the five ranges,--the Marquette, Gogebic, Menominee, Vermilion, and Mesabi,--located in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, supply to-day more iron than any single country in the world.