Detroit

the metropolis of Michigan and adjacent territory. It is situated on the north bank of the Detroit River, from which it takes its name. The word is French, meaning the strait. The river is about twenty-five miles long. It leads from Lake St. Clair southward to Lake Erie. It widens in places to encircle hundreds of charming islands occupied by villas, vineyards, and orchards. At Detroit, the passage is about three-fourths of a mile wide and thirty-two feet deep. The current flows smoothly at a rate of two miles an hour. The river affords several miles of excellent wharfage and a safe anchorage. Boats laden with the wheat, lumber, iron ore, and copper of the Great Lakes, from Chicago to Duluth pass Detroit on the way eastward. Salt, coal, nails, and other heavy articles of merchandise pass Detroit going westward. It is said that in tonnage, that is to say the number of tons of freight, the Detroit exceeds every other river or canal in the world. Twenty-five thousand laden boats pass yearly. Shipping alone, however, is not what has made the city. Detroit ranks with Buffalo and Cleveland, but is preeminently a railroad town. Seven trunk lines center here. It is situated at the greatest crossing between the United States and Canada. More freight and passengers cross the Canadian line here than at any other point between the two oceans. Trains run aboard double-tracked steam ferry boats and are carried across. A plan is on foot for an expensive tunnel by which they may pass beneath the channel of the river.

The plan of the city is unique. Several fine avenues radiate like spokes from a point near the river. A park, called the Grand Circus, and the principal public buildings are located at this center. The rest of the city is laid out in the usual system of squares, bounded by streets running with the points of the compass.

The manufacturing interests of the city are large. The output was rated at $100,000,000 for the year of the last census. Manufactures of steel, iron, tobacco, drugs, and liquors rank in the order named. Detroit is a center of the garden-seed industry. "City of Pills" is a nickname gained by the manufacture of 6,000,000,000 pellets a year.

Detroit was settled originally by the French. It passed under British rule at the close of the French and Indian War. The historic defense of the fort in 1763 is graphically told in Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac. In 1805 it was made the capital of Michigan Territory, then extending to the Mississippi River. The population in 1900 was 285,704. The State census of 1905 reported 317,591. The census of 1910 is expected to report a third of a million.

The city has the usual system of public schools, housed in over seventy buildings. There are a number of private academies. The Jesuits maintain Detroit College. There are over 200 churches. The Detroit Public Library contains 200,000 volumes. There are published in the city nearly 100 periodicals, including dailies, weeklies, and magazines. The Museum of Art contains a very fine collection of relics of antiquity and scientific specimens, as well as a gallery of paintings. City water is obtained from the center of Lake St. Clair. Electric lights, railways, and well built, well swept streets give the city a metropolitan air.

See Seeds; Pontiac; Michigan; Drugs