bly best adapted to milling hard spring wheats, which break rather than mash between the rolls.

Minneapolis has become the headquarters of flour milling because of her great water-power, her situation with reference to the spring-wheat lands of the Northwest, the enterprise of her capitalists, and the extraordinary skill and inventiveness of her operative millers and machinists. An account of the inventions made here in milling apparatus and methods would form a most interesting chapter in local history. There are now standing thirtyseven mills, capable of producing 37,850 barrels of flour daily. The actual output of the last calendar year was 6,088,865 barrels, as against 30,000 barrels in 1860, 193,000 in 1870, 2,051,840 in 1880. About one-third of the current product is exported, being billed direct from the milldoor to Liverpool and Glasgow. The first shipment of flour from the falls was in 1858, when a few barrels were consigned

the tendency in mill building has been constantly towards enlargement. Whether the economic limit has been reached in the great "Pillsbury A" Mill can only be conjectured. This immense establishment, erected in 1881, covering with its six stories an area of 20,000 square feet (not counting that of five accessory structures of no small size), having 220 pairs of rolls, 180 purifiers, 61 cleaning machines, 300 bolting reels, 50 scalpers, 28 bran dusters, and in all 882 separate machines, has actually produced 7198 barrels of flour in twentyfour consecutive hours. Twenty-five thousand bushels of wheat are needed for the ordinary daily run, 250 men are employed, and the force furnished by the two immense turbine water wheels is over two

thousand horse-power. The ingenious and equitable system of profit-sharing carried on by this concern, beneficial alike to capital and labor, has been frequently described in economic journals.

Within the past year the great "A" Mill,

and two others belonging to the Pillsbury firm, have been transferred to a syndicate of American and English capitalists. The same combination is obtaining control, by transfer or lease, of other mills, in all of eight establishments, capable of turning out 22,500 barrels a day. The management of this immense aggregation is reposed in the hands of Mr. Charles A. Pillsbury, the successful and experienced miller heretofore at the head of the Pillsbury firm. Opinions differ as to the desirability of such agencies of production being so largely owned by non-residents. Some see in it a desirable addition of capital to be managed by persons locally interested; others remark on the circumstance that the profits will be mostly spent elsewhere. In the face of actual experiment it is unnecessary to indulge in conjecture. A decade or two will tell the story.

The daily supply of wheat for the mills is drawn from cars on track and from local elevators, having an aggregate capacity of over 15,000,000 of bushels. On the railways westward are 2000 el

evators capable of storing 45,000,000 of bushels more,

of the manufacture of sacks, or coopering and other industries incidental to milling. Nor can mention be made of a jobbing and retail trade formerly of small comparative magnitude, but at length becoming notable even for a manufacturing city. The banking capital in 1889 was $9,000,ooo, and the clearings for that year were $240,000,000.

The great natural advantages of situation, seized upon and turned to account by keen intelligence and audacious enterprise, have occasioned the building, at the Falls of Saint Anthony, of a city of nearly 200,000 people, mostly since the close of the Rebellion. The assessed valuation of its property in 1889 was $128,595,424, and the city owns public property in addition to the amount of $15,000,000. There were

twelve states in the Union, each of which showed a smaller assessment in 1880. If the ratio of assessed valuation to true value be taken at 40 to 100 (that of Minnesota in 1880), the wealth of the city would stand at about $335,000,000.

What are the people of Minneapolis doing with this vast wealth? is the question which will here be asked. Have they so invested principal and are they so disposing income as to

on which the millers can draw as the local supply diminishes. Of this elevator business, unknown in the last generation, and which has wrought a revolution in the grain trade of the world, further account cannot here be made. Nor can notice be taken

secure the best ends of civilized life, the largest returns in the way of social, intellectual, moral, aesthetic, and religious culture? Spite of some vagaries and extravagancies, the young city can give a good account of her stewardship.

Upon the broad plain cut by the gorge of the Mississippi, the original proprietors, with admirable generosity, laid the streets of the new towns 80 feet wide, and the lots 66 feet in front, with a depth of 165 feet, giving one-quarter of an acre to each lot. Until the recent appearance of some blocks of apartment houses, it has been the Minneapolis fashion and ambition to secure at least one full lot for a citizen's home. This separation of the dwellings gives an effect of space and largeness hardly known in older American cities, and in strong contrast with some younger ones. A Minneapolis boy of ten, on his first journey to an eastern city, exclaimed, "What an ugly city! No residences; nothing but tenements!" In a latitude the most favorable for grasses, Minneapolis rejoices in an extent and luxuriance of lawns equally surprising and attractive in the eyes of the visitor.

Thanks to the taste and enterprise of a number of young architects, who have brought the best ideas and projects of American and foreign schools of architecture, the dwellings of the city are generally tasteful in design, and the instances of decided beauty are numerous. The splendid mansion of Senator William D. Washburn may be referred to as the best example. Business and municipal structures present many phases of fashion, from the grave and massive simplicity of the Pillsbury "A" Mill to the ornate façades of the great office building of the Northwestern Guaranty Loan Company. This immense structure, 132 by 156 feet in area, rears its twelve stories to a height of 172 feet. On the roof is a garden of flowers, in which refreshments are served from the restaurant which occupies the twelfth floor. From the roof an observation tower rises 38 feet, and the flag floats in the blue full 250 feet above the paveThe building contains nearly 400

ment.

rooms, all heated by steam, lighted by electricity, and supplied with water. company intended to make this building the most complete and elegant of its kind, and believes that it has not failed. The

A Doorway of the Washburn House. United States post-office, built at a cost of over $600,000, on adjoining lots, would in another situation present an imposing and attractive appearance, but is here quite overcrowded by its giant neighbor.

It is only a dozen years ago that a city hall was built on the triangle at the convergence of Hennepin and Nicollet avenues. Both this and the old county court-house, repeatedly enlarged, were long ago out

The West Hotel, with its eight stories and frontages of 173 and 196 feet, built of Joliet stone and red brick, is entitled, perhaps, to hold the first place among the great number of splendid hostelries which adorn American cities. The vast central court with its ceiling of stained glass and walls of marble, the main staircase leading to the parlor floor, and the great diningroom are beautiful examples of architectural design. The hotel is, of course, supplied with all the modern appliances, and is as rear to being absolutely fire-proof as the state of the building art permits.

On Nicollet Avenue, reaching the whole length of the block between Fifth and Sixth streets, stands the handsome Syndicate Block, said to be the largest commercial structure in the country under a

stood the old Winslow Hotel, the pride of old settlers, now stands the vast building of the Minneapolis Industrial Exposition, belonging technically to a corporation, but devoted to public uses. This structure of stone, brick, and glass, three stories in height, 366 feet square, its picturesque tower rising to an elevation of 260 feet, was built and completed in less than eighty days, in the spring of 1887. Within its walls are held annual expositions of industry and art, attracting vast crowds of visitors from near and distant points.

There is one feature of these successive displays in regard to which Minneapolis may perhaps claim a precedence. At the outset of the enterprise, the art movement hereafter to be noticed had reached such a stage and acquired such an impetus, that