Excerpt from Minnetonka and Alexandria

In no part of the immense lacustrine region of the Northwestern country are the lakes so attractive as within what is known in histories and descrip tions of Minnesota as the Big Woods. A great belt of hardwood timber' sweeps across the State, and it is in its deep recesses that the loveliest of Minnesota's lakes are snugly hidden away. There are here no dull and monotonous reaches of level prairie, but noble trees come down to the water's edge the while they bend above it lovingly, the banks rise steep and sheer, the numerous islets are drops of emerald in a sea of glass, and Nature brings forth in profusion her richest and most varied charms. Ensconced in the midst of such a region lies minnetonka, the queen and peerless beauty of them all! Although it is situated upon the main line of the St. Paul, Minne apolis Manitoba Railroad, but twenty-five miles northwest of St. Paul and fifteen from Minneapolis, being by its proximity to these cities rather a suburb than a summer resort, and accessible by trains at any hour of the day, yet so bountifully has Nature dealt with it, that it can never lose its primeval fresh ness. Quiet recesses along the indentations, which are its most remarkable feature, will ever preserve their characteristic wildness, and beyond what may be desirable. In the way of beautification and adornment, the hand of man can never undo what the hand of Nature with such unerring skill has wrought. Hotels may be multiplied until the flag of some great caravansery shall be descried from every knoll; parks may be laid out and embellished until they transform the surrounding country into veritable fairyland boulevards may encircle the lake with great sweeps of many a mile; but still the charm will be that of natural beauty, and tired men and women will turn away from the artificiality with which they have become sated, to find here a vision and a breath of the divine that hovers over forest, wave, and shore. Had the twogreat cities of the North West, the centres of popu lation for a future empire, been located with a view to providing for the hun dreds of thousands they will one day contain a charming and convenient retreat, instead of' remain ing for many years almost ignorant of its existence.

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