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  on the West, Squirrel river, Spirit, New Wood, Big Rib, Big
  Eau Plaine and Little Eau Plaine rivers; on the east, Eagle, Pel-
  ican, Prairie, Trapp, Pine, Big Eau Claire and little Eau Claire
  rivers, all having an abundance of valuable water power.
  The inducements for settlement and investment of capital here
  are many, and such as must strike the investigator with a force
  irresistible. They can mainly be inferred from the foregoing,
  and are decidedly superior to those of the prairies west. The
  tiller of the soil has here the best of home markets for every
  particle of stuff raised on his farm, anA as it were at his very
  door. The pineries employ thousands of men in the woods, the&
  mills and on the rafts annually. Besides this advantage, he has
  that of having plenty of timber for fencing and other purposes,
  which is one that every practical farmer, especially if he has
  worked a prairie farm, knows the importance of considering, for,
  if he has only scant means, he need not expend any of them for
  timber, which on many farms usually entails a heavy expendi-
ture that to the needy immigrant must be sometimes distressing.
   Besides the principal rivers enumerated in the above table,
there are innumerable smaller streams and branches, watering
almost the whole surface of the State; very few farms being with-
out living water. The streams running into Lake Superior have
the most rapid descent; those tributary to Lake Michigan and
the Mississippi having more gentle and uniform slopes. Occa-
sional rapids on the most of those streams afford opportunities
for water power which are or may hereafter be used to propel
mills and machinery of various kinds. The Wisconsin, below
Portage City, has a descent of two-thirds of a foot per mile,
runs at the rate of two miles an hour, and has an average dis-
charge estimated at about 10,000 cubic feet per second.
  The Mississippi is navigable for steamboats along the whole
border of the State; the Wolf and Fox rivers are also navigable
by small steamboats, the latter having been artificially improved
by the construction of locks and dams between Lake Winnebago
and Green Bay for that purpose. Several other rivers are
navigated down stream by rafts of lumber and logs.  Wis-
consin, Chippewa, Wolf and Black rivers are also navigable for
steamers.