The position of St. Paul, at the head of navigation, and as the focus of the railway activity of the Northwest, commands for it an extensive wholesale trade, its sales aggregating, in 1885, the large sum of The surprise with which the visitor views the stately piles that are the outward and visible signs of the vast commercial and financial interests of the city, the creation of a few brief seasons, is no greater than the astonishment with which he realizes the absence of all appearance of immaturity. In no city in the Union are the busi ness quarters more solid and substantial; in none is the domestic architecture more attractive. Nothing is crude, nothing tentative, nothing transitional.