The City of Detroit, View from Canadian Shore, Antique Harbor Engraving, c.1872

Detroit seen across the river from the Canadian shore, an original steel engraving published in London by Cassell, Petter and Galpin, c.1872. The plate title "The City of Detroit" is lettered in script, with "(From Canada Shore)" beneath it.

A grassy slope with pines and low shrubs fills the foreground, where two cows graze and a figure stands near the water. Beyond it, the river opens into a wide, calm reach. Schooners and other sailing vessels lie at anchor or sail across it, with a large ship at the right edge, and a paddle steamer is seen faintly in the distance. The low line of the city's rooftops, with a few church spires, stretches along the far bank under a broad sky of building clouds.

Detroit stands on the river that links Lake Erie with Lake St. Clair, and this view across to the American side shows it as a lake port of the early 1870s. Cassell issued plates of this kind for readers in Britain who wanted to see the cities of the United States and Canada.