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Show 388 WESTERN WILDS. Fargo, Dakota, to the construction train, on which we traversed the last hundred miles of the road. For fifty miles west of Red River the country appears as level as the calm ocean; the rank grass above, and the black soil below, as shown in the cuts, indicate great fertility. The biting wind from the north- west brought a chilling rain, and after it sleet and finally snow, which last was a great im-provement on the sleet. We had been assured by Jay Cooke that " the isothermal line takes a great northward deflection west of the Great Lakes," giving this a mild climate ; but a snow storm in Sep-tember did not indicate it. We crossed the Shyene River twice, and soon after ran through the edge of Salt Lake so called, though little like the great one in Utah. It appears to be about five miles long, is thickly impregnated with salt and alkali, and has an outlet only in very wet weather. The ter-minus of the road was then at Jimtown, near the western limit of fer-tile land. The cold was severe and the wind blowing almost a hurri-cane. As my blue fingers stiffened around the handle of my valise, and the canvas town clattered in the wind as if it would fly away, the thermometer standing at 28, and the air full of flying snow, I was in-clined to set down most I had heard about this " mild and salubrious climate " as the exuberance of a playful fancy. But in a day or two the storm yielded to sunshine, October came in gloriously, and good weather continued a month longer. The storm prevented our excur-sion beyond the terminus, but from abundant testimony I am con-vinced there is little to see but rolling plains scantily clothed with grass, alkali flats and sand- hills. The fertile land lies along the east-ern border. From Jimtown eastward to Duluth developed no new features. First we had a hundred miles of Red River Valley" to Fargo and Moorehead ; fifty miles of the same on the eastern side ; then the rise to Detroit lakes, and then the half- barren strip of marsh and pine, tamarack and scrub- oak flat, till we got within seventy- five miles of Duluth. Thence the country rapidly improved; the soil and timber were fine, and scenery on the St. Louis River approaching ihe grand. Duluth had become historic it is more historic than commercial, still, for that matter. " The Zenith City of the unsalted seas," as the local poets modestly styled it, did not appear to advantage just after a Sep-tember snow- storm ; but it was lively with immigrants, colony agents, real estate speculators, travelers and freighters. Since then the German- Russian Mennonites have been pouring into Southern Dakota by thousands, and it is evident the future population |