100. Waterway cities.—Most of the larger cities of the North Central States have grown up where some waterway, either a river or a lake, makes trade easy. Of the thirty-four largest cities of the United States, fourteen are in the North Central States. All of these fourteen big cities are regularly visited by steam boats except Indianapolis, Indiana; Co lumbus and Akron, Ohio; and Omaha, Nebraska. These four, since they are in the center of level regions having many railroads, use trains instead of boats. In all these cities, and in many others, large numbers of people are busy working in railroad yards, in factories, and in wholesale stores. The factories and the wholesale stores send goods out to the retail stores in the towns and villages.
101. The lake ports.—We have seen how the Great Lakes help to transport the things which the people in the North Cen tral States wish to sell. In places where it is easy for people to reach the lakes with their freight, big cities or lake ports have grown up. For example, Cleveland is so near the coal fields of Pennsylvania and Ohio that it loads coal for shipment to such lake ports as Duluth and Milwaukee, almost a thousand miles away. Much iron ore is mined near the western end of Lake Superior and shipped from Duluth to the cities on the lower lakes. This ore, along with the lumber, the wheat, the corn, and the oats, makes a great trade for the lake steamers; and the canal at Sault Ste. Marie, where the boats go up into and down from Lake Su perior through the locks, is a very busy place.
Cleveland and the smaller cities near it have many busy fac tories using iron made of ore from Lake Superior. The iron is smelted with coal from neighboring coal fields. Here also much iron ore is unloaded and put on trains to go to the iron furnaces at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and at many smaller cities. We shall read more about the iron in dustry later. (Sec. 191.) On the map of the United States (Fig. 64), trace ways over which you might go by railroad from Cleveland to Minneapolis; from New York to Duluth; and from Balti more to South Dakota. In passing around Lake Michigan, all these railroad lines go through the great city of Chicago. This makes this city at the lower end of Lake Michigan a natural railroad center, as well as a lake port. Boats on the lakes carry freight so much more cheaply than the rail roads can, that people ship their freight by the lake boats if they can do so. Now you see why the lake ports have grown to be great cities, and why Chicago is the largest of them all.
102. Chicago, a great trade center.— In size, Chicago is the second city in the United States. It is the greatest railroad
center, the greatest grain market, and the greatest meat-pack ing center in the world. It is also the greatest city for the manufacture of farm machinery, because so many large farms are near it. The lake boats bring lumber for the wooden parts of these machines, and iron ore for the iron parts. The coal from neighboring fields is used to smelt the iron ore and to run the factory en gines. There are many factories in Chicago which make from iron many kinds of things to sell. Chicago also has mail order houses that ship out each day thou sands of packages of goods, which go to every state in the United States.
103. The Mississippi River Louis is the chief city of the Mississippi Valley, as Chicago is of the Lake District. It is located on the Mississippi River between the mouths of the Missouri and the Ohio, and boats can run from it to other cities far away—to Pittsburgh on the Ohio, to Kansas City on the Missouri, and to St. Paul and New Orleans on the Mississippi. St. Louis produces shoes, cars, meat, and many other articles. The very long bridge across the Mississippi helps the merchants of St. Louis to trade with people on both sides of the river.
On the upper Mississippi are the twin cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Long before the railroads were built, the steam boats stopped here below the falls of St.
Anthony, and white traders began to "swap" with the Indians, who brought them furs. St. Paul, at the head of navi gation, is now the capital of Minnesota.
What is the great industry of Minneapolis? (Sec. 79.) The twin cities trade with a large farming region, and have many railroad yards and repair shops.
On the Ohio River is Cincin nati with its meat-packing plants, its clothing and tobac co factories, and its iron and steel industries. All Ohio River cities can get coal very cheaply by boat from Pennsylvania (see Fig. 195), and logs and lumber are floated down some of the branches of the Ohio.
104. Raw materials for manufacturing. —The North Central States are rich in raw materials. They have grain and meat, coal, petroleum, natural gas, iron, wood, and clay. Coal to run the engines and smelt the ore is found in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and in ea.tern Ohio. Nat ural gas that comes out of wells in the ground near some of these coal fields is carried in pipes to farms and cities to be used for heating, cooking, and lighting. Because of her coal, her gas, and the clay beneath her soil, Ohio leads all the states in pottery manufacture. Petroleum is found in Indiana and Kansas.