is usually the darkest, and the tail is nearly black. The under jaw, from the chin about as far back as the angle of the mouth, is generally white. In the European mink the upper lip is also white, but, as this occasionally occurs in American specimens, it fails as an absolutely distinguishing character. Besides the white on the chin, there are often other irregular white patches on the under parts of the body. In very rare instances the tail is tipped with white. The fur is important in commerce.
The principal characteristic of the mink in comparison with its congeners is its amphibious mode of life. It is to the water what the other weasels are to the land, or martens to the trees, being as essentially aquatic in its habits as the otter, beaver, or musk-rat, and spending perhaps more of its time in the water than it does on land. It swims with most of the body submerged, and dives with perfect ease, remaining long without coming to the surface to breathe. It makes its nest in burrows in the banks of streams, breeding once a year about the month of April, and producing five or six young at a birth. Its food consists of frogs, fish, fresh-water molluscs and crustaceans, as well as mice, rats, musk-rats, rabbits and small birds. In common with the other animals of the genus, it has a very peculiar and disagreeable effluvium, which, according to Dr Coues, is more powerful, penetrating and lasting than that of any animal of the country except the skunk. (W. H. F.)
MINNEAPOLIS, the largest city of Minnesota, U.S.A., and
the county-seat of Hennepin county, situated on both banks of
the Mississippi river at the Falls of St Anthony and immediately
above St Paul. Pop. (1870), 13,066; (1880), 46,887;
(1890), 164,738; (1900), 202,718; (1910 census) 301,408. Of
the total population in 1900, those of foreign parentage (both
parents foreign-born) numbered 118,946, and there were 61,021
of foreign birth, including 20,035 Swedes, 11,532 Norwegians,
7335 Germans, 5637 English-Canadians, 3213 Irish, 2289
English, 1929 Russians, 1706 French-Canadians and 1133
Austrians. Minneapolis is served by the Chicago, Burlington &
Quincy, the Chicago, Great Western, the Chicago, Milwaukee
& St Paul, the Chicago & Northwestern, the Chicago, Rock
Island & Pacific, the Great Northern, the Minneapolis &
St Louis, the Minneapolis, St Paul & Sault Sainte Marie,
and the Northern Pacific railways. It has also three
terminal switching lines and the belt line of the Minnesota
Transfer Company, serving both Minneapolis and St Paul.
With St Paul, which is served by the same system of railways,
Minneapolis is the chief railway centre of the Northwest and
one of the greatest in the United States, being the principal
gateway to the commerce of the Canadian and Pacific north-west.
There are a Union passenger station, and separate
stations for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul, the Chicago,
Great Western and the Minneapolis & St Louis railways.
The city is situated on a high plateau (800–850 ft. above sea-level) above the river, and covers an area of about 53 sq. m. It has an extensive system of boulevards, parkways and parks (aggregating 2465 acres in 1908). Among the parks are Loring, near the centre of the city, in which is a statue of Ole Bull; Lyndale, in the south-west part of the city; Interlachen, just north-west of Lyndale; Glenwood, in the west of the city; Van Cleve, Logan, Windom and Columbia in the part of the city east of the Mississippi river; Riverside, on the south-west bank of the Mississippi; and Minnehaha Park, in which are the Minnehaha Falls, a beautiful cascade of the Minnehaha Creek (the outlet of Lake Minnetonka), near the Mississippi, with a fall of 50 ft., well known from Longfellow’s poem “Hiawatha.” The numerous small lakes in the city (there are about 200 lakes in Hennepin county) have been incorporated in the park system; among them are Lake Harriet (353 acres; in Lake Harriet Park), Lake Calhoun (on which are extensive public baths), Lake Amelia (295 acres), Lake of the Isles (100 acres), Cedar Lake, Powder Horn Lake (in the park of that name) and Sandy Lake (in Columbia Park). Adjoining Minnehaha Park are the grounds (51 acres, given to the state by the city) and buildings of the Minnesota state soldiers’ home (1887); and 2 m. beyond the Falls, at the junction of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers, is the Fort Snelling Military Reservation (1819). Seven miles south-west of the limits of the city is Lake Minnetonka, one of the most famous summer resorts in the Northwest, a beautiful body of water 15 m. long, with a shore line of 150 m. encircled by undulating wooded hills. Among the most fashionable streets are Mount Curve, Clifton and Park avenues, all in the “West Division” or south-western quarter of the city. The streets in all parts of the city are of exceptional width and heavily shaded in the residential districts. There are handsome residential suburbs. The court-house and city-hall, constructed of red Minnesota, granite and completed in 1902 at a cost of about $3,500,000, is one of the finest municipal buildings in America. Other prominent buildings are the Masonic Temple, the Chamber of Commerce, the Lumber Exchange, the Bank of Commerce, the Auditorium; the buildings of the Metropolitan Life (formerly the Guaranty), the Security Bank, the Northwestern National Bank, the First National Bank, the Andrus, the New York Life, and the Young Men’s Christian Association; Hotel Radisson and West Hotel. Minneapolis is the see of a Protestant Episcopal bishopric. On the east side of the river are the buildings of the university of Minnesota (q.v.). In Minneapolis are the Minneapolis College of Physicians and Surgeons (1883), the medical school of Hamline University; Augsburg Seminary (Norwegian Lutheran, 1869), the United Church Seminary (1890), the Minnesota College (Swedish, 1905), the Minneapolis Normal School for Kindergartners, the Froebellian Kindergarten Normal School, Graham Hall and Stanley Hall, the Minneapolis School of Music, Oratory and Dramatic Art, and the Northwestern Conservatory of Music. Between Minneapolis and St Paul are the main buildings of Hamline University (Methodist Episcopal, co-educational, 1854). The public library (more than 180,000 volumes in 1908) grew out of a private library, the Athenaeum (1860), was reorganized by Herbert Putnam (librarian from 1887 to 1891), and has several branches, the most notable of which is the Pillsbury Library (1904) on the east side; in its main building (Hennepin Avenue and 10th Street) are the offices of the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences (1873), which, with the Society of Fine Arts, assisted in erecting the building in 1884. Among the hospitals and charitable institutions are the Minneapolis city hospital, the state hospital for crippled and deformed children, and Asbury Methodist, the Northwestern, the Deaconess’, the Swedish, the St Mary’s, the Maternity and the St Barnabas hospitals, Bethany Home, the Catholic orphan asylum, the Washburn orphans’ home, the Pillsbury House (1906) where settlement work is carried on by the Plymouth Congregational Church, and several free dispensaries. The first newspaper in the city was the St Anthony Express, which began publication in 1851; it is no longer in existence. In 1906 the city had, in addition to numerous weekly and monthly periodicals (English, Norwegian-Danish, Swedish, German, French), four dailies, the Tribune (1867), the Journal (1878), and the News (1903), all in English, and the Tidende (Norwegian-Danish), established as a weekly in 1851.
The Mississippi river, which here has an average width of about 1200 ft., is crossed by 17 bridges (9 highway and 8 railway bridges). The Federal government undertook to deepen the channel by dredging and by making two dams and two locks between the Chicago, St Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha railway bridge in St Paul and the Washington Avenue bridge in Minneapolis—a distance of 11·4 m.—from 2 or 3 ft. to 6 ft., and to make the river regularly navigable as far as the Washington Avenue bridge, Minneapolis; the project, first adopted in 1894 and modified in 1907, was 70% completed in July 1908, and up to that time $1,061,397 had been spent on the Work. The enormous water-power of the Falls of St Anthony, yielding about 40,000 h.p., has been the principal factor in making Minneapolis a great manufacturing centre. The rapid erosion of the soft limestone bed at one time threatened the destruction of the power, but this has been prevented by an enormous apron and an artificial concrete floor (completed in 1879). Additional water-power (25,000 h.p.) is derived from Taylor’s Falls on the St Croix
