an area of 30,

000 square miles, belches forth every minute into Lake Michigan from 3,600,000 to 7,000,000 cubic feet of water. This overflow, rushing through a channel a half-mile long and a half-mile wide, with a fall of 20 feet, makes the Sault Rapids; and the Sault has a minimum force of 130,000 and a maximum force of 260,000 horse power.

Seven years ago the Canadian village of Sault Ste. Marie "Sosantmary" as they hurriedly pronounce it here, was dead. A young engineer had longed to use this mighty power of the Sault, digged a canal, broke the town and his own heart, and sat brooding on the bank of a big ditch that was no good to anybody. An explorer in search of water power stumbled over the engineer. "Let me take your ditch," said the stranger; "I'll dredge it and deepen it, sell. power to the town, and to others who will rush in to build shops and mills here on the great rapids, come, you shall help me."

But when the canal had been completed nobody came to rent the power, so the fortune-hunter organized the Consolidated Lake Superior Company, built a pulp mill, and began making ground wood pulp. Immediately those who thought they controlled the pulp market of the world put the price down 25 per cent. The pulp made here and elsewhere at that time contained over 40 per cent. of water, so it could not be exported.

Instead of a misfortune, this temporary embarrassment proved a blessing to the Sault company, for the president, having gathered about him by this time a number of skilled men,experts in chemistry and other lines, set to work

on a machine to make dry pulp. They succeeded in doing this, but it was now so nearly like paper that they were unable to export it as raw pulp. Then they painted little red spots on the great rollers over which the pulp in sheet form is rolled in the drying process. The pulp would not stick to the paint spot, and the result was a row of half-inch holes right across the sheet at regular intervals, and these holes let it pass to the export market free of duty, for nobody would buy "paper" full of holes.

The next achievement, or invention, was a chemical pulp plant. It was a success from the beginning, but the sulphur necessary for the successful operation of this plant had to be brought from Sicily.

Mechanical and chemical wood pulp are both made from spruce. Mechanical, or ground wood pulp, is made by simply holding a stick of spruce sidewise to a grindstone, by means of hydraulic pressure. The whole stick is ground

SAU

VIEW OF POWER CANAL, SAULT STE. MARIE, MICH.

up, including all the resinous matter, and one ton of ground wood pulp requires about one cord of spruce wood.

Chemical pulp is made by first chipping up the spruce, and in a steel digester, lined with bricks to prevent corrosion of the shell, it is "cooked" by steam and an acid hereafter mentioned. The acid dissolves the resinous matter in the spruce and leaves only the long wood fiber, which is, therefore, much stronger than the fiber produced by grinding the wood, and is, of course, much more costly. One ton of

made the finest nickel steel, for which they find a ready market.

Well, this thing has gone on,-the actual fast building, developing, and inventing,-until today the Canadian side of the Sault looks like a world's fair, and a walk through it is simply bewildering. There is nearly a square mile of mammoth mills, machine shops, smelters, and factories, and a half-mile of ore docks. These industries, that five years ago employed less than five hundred men have nearly five thousand upon their pay roll to-day, and this does not include men indirectly employed by contractors. Twice as many people draw pay to-day from the big Sault company as lived here when the explorer came and waked the sleeping village. The best generalview photograph obtainable shows not much more than half the building on the Canadian side alone. The new steel plant and the big battery of blast furnaces that stand by the ore docks, the car shops, the veneering plant, the sawmill, and great charcoal ovens, - where

everything but the smoke is saved,-have all been added since the latest photographs were made.

One is amazed that so much could be accomplished with no revenue coming in, and, again, that it could be accomplished in so short a time. Thousands upon thousands of dollars have been spent upon experiments alone. The sewage system alone cost $100,000 before they could begin to build.

A railway, the Algoma Central & Hudson

carefully thought out and worked out on practical and scientific principles. It is the inevitable result of research, of intelligent conception, tireless energy and the enthusiastic coöperation of 300 clever men who have been assembled at the Sault to assist in carrying forward to success one of the grandest industrial schemes that has ever been undertaken on this continent.

The interests and industries here are so varied, so well planned, each working to help the other (the bark of the spruce pole bleaches the pulp), -that, if one should fail utterly, the rest would go on. A dozen Banks of Montreal might be forced to close their doors and abandon a dozen towns in Canada, but it would not be felt at the head office; business would continue at the old stand. And if steel and nickel and iron, and all the hard things that are made here, should fail of a market, they would still have this 150,000 square miles of wilderness to harvest and work up.

More than this: Away to the north, past the highlands that rim the lake region, this Hudson Bay road will tap a great swale that will some day yield wheat, as the Red River valley does; only it will all be "No. 1 hard."

One stream they cross on a bridge 135 feet high; but, just below the bridge, the river takes a sheer drop of 170 feet; so that it will be 305 feet from the rail to the river.

Beyond these rocks and rills, the haunt of the deer, the moose and the caribou, the line will drop gradually to the lower warmer lands, and then on through-they are not quite sure what to Hudson Bay.

On the Michigan side, the same company that has accomplished so much on the edge of the Canadian wilderness has scooped out a power canal beside which the drain that connects the Mediterranean and the Red seas would look like

an irrigating ditch. It is 30 feet deep, 200 feet wide, and two miles long. Near the mouth it flares, fan-shaped, pouring its waters in under the mammoth power house that is just a little over a quarter of a mile long.

From a wide fore-bay,-flowing at the rate of 108,000,000 cubic feet an hour, this vast flood will sweep through the greatest power house on earth, and turn the turbines; of these there are 320, each having the power of 125 horses. This job has already cost in the neighborhood of $4,000,000, and they have not yet begun building the mill, which, like all their other plants, will be the biggest and best in the world. It may be said, despite the fact that millions have been spent on the Michigan side, that work is only begun.

On the Canadian side, however, they are getting down to steady work. Street cars are stopping at the corner of the grounds, picking up the tired employees and carrying them home in the twilight. There is an electric automobile at the door of the general office building, and a yacht in the harbor. A magnificent house is being built on the highlands overlooking the Sault; and here, with his parents, his brother who has worked with him, and his sisters,-the young man who has been the ruling genius in all this great industrial development will make his home. From his wide veranda he can watch by day the dark clouds floating from the mills; and by night the glare of the blast furnaces will remind him of the Fourth-of-July of his boyhood home in Bangor, Maine. And at evening,-when the wind holds steady from the south, he can hear the roar of furnaces, the singing of the circular saw, the hum of wheels, and the glad cry of the iron horse coming out of the forest; and this is the grand new song of the Sault.