434 A VISIT TO THE ILLINOIS. 



to induce the man, possessed of a luxurious native home, to abandon his 

 position in society, and fly to the wilds and solitudes of a foreign land. 



Still the scenery of these prairies is most sublime and impressive ; 

 and, to a traveller who has journeyed for days through the monotonous 

 and gloomy roads of a woodland country, the first view of these wide- 

 extending meadows is enchanting in the highest degree. The scene is 

 picturesque and magnificent : the prairies, undulating and rolling away 

 for miles, combining the grandeur of the ocean with the beauty of an 

 English park. The prairies are of various extent ; three of the largest 

 class being upwards of fifty miles in circumference : but these, from the 

 deficiency of timber, are uninhabitable, excepting at the edges of the 

 woods, by which they are surrounded: and from this circumstance, 

 great bodies of land, comprising a considerable portion of the state of 

 Illinois, will for ages remain uncultivated. The land is generally fer- 

 tile, and water is invariably found a few feet below the surface of the 

 ground. And thus a settler, who pitches his tent at the edge of the 

 woods, possesses the convenience of timber for fencing, building, and 

 firewood, and enjoys a ready made farm upon the prairie. The origin 

 of these singular meadows is an object of much controversy ; some na- 

 turalists having conjectured them to be the bottoms of lakes of the 

 antedeluvian world ; but this opinion is not supported by appearences, 

 there being no deposit of marine remains, nor is there any appearance of 

 the banks, which to enclose the waters must have risen many feet above 

 the surface of the lake, whereas the woods are usually upon a level with 

 the prairie. The more common conjecture assigns as their origin the 

 annual burning of the woods by the Indians, for the purpose of en- 

 closing the deer ; but many striking objections occur to this theory, for 

 it is still the custom of the Indians to burn other tracts of country for 

 similar purposes without any material injury to the woods, nor is it 

 easy to determine upon this ground why other tracts of country are not 

 found to be divested of their natural timber, there being no prairies in 

 all the great regions of the continent, eastward of the Ohio riyer. It is, 

 therefore, difficult to assign any satisfactory conjecture for the origin of 

 these natural meadows, and they have probably existed in their present 

 condition since the creation of the world, a variation in the works 

 of nature similar to the oasis of the deserts of Arabia. They are covered 

 with a rough natural grass, which grows to the height of six feet, but 

 this contains little nutriment, and is useless for cattle. The thickly 

 matted roots of this grass make the first ploughing of the prairies 

 a most difficult operation, but the soil is afterwards remarkably easy of 

 cultivation, being invariably a rich vegetable mould. The productions 

 consist of Indian corn, wheat, Cotton, and tobacco ; but owing to the 

 deficiency of negro labour, Illinois being amongst the free states of the 

 Union, cotton and tobacco is only partially cultivated, and corn and 

 wheat form the staple productions of the state. The fields of Indian 

 corn present a magnificent appearance, and, both in utility and beauty 

 of appearance, this invaluable plant is the pride and glory of the conti- 

 nent of America, and the first of the gifts of providence in every 

 country, the climate of which favours its production. The atmosphere 

 of the Illinois is remarkably pure and salubrious, being free from 

 moisture and the variations of temperature so common in the states to 

 the eastward of the Alleghany mountains. To natives of England the 

 effect of this dry and equable climate is observed to be very salubrious, 



