2 BOTANY OF L,A SAL,LE COUNTY. 



the meridian of Ottawa is nearly that of Mt. Vernon, 

 Illinois; Paris, Tennessee; and the mouth of the Mis- 

 sissippi river, and wholly west of South America, 

 while to the north it runs very near Oshkosh, Wiscon- 

 sin, and Houghton, Michigan. It thus lies in latitude 

 in that belt of lands which in Europe and Asia is 

 occupied by nations which seem to have passed their 

 meridian, and have passed into the lengthening 

 shadows of life's ebb and evening-. Not a first-class 

 power of the Old World lies in this region, and it is 

 somewhat curious that the most progressive of them 

 all, Japan, is the farthest east. 



The County is rectangular in form, with a smaller 

 rectangle attached near the southwest corner. It is 

 six townships long- by five wide, or roug-hly approxi- 

 mates a length of thirty-six miles from north to south, 

 and a breadth of about thirty miles from east to west. 

 The small rectangle is about twelve miles from north 

 to south, making the extreme length of the County 

 forty-eight miles, and the breadth six miles, the rect- 

 angle containing two full townships. The area of the 

 County would thus be that of thirty-two townships, 

 or 1,152 square miles, but several of the townships 

 contain less than thirty-six square miles, and the total 

 area is about 1,132 square miles, or less by about 

 eight per cent, than Rhode Island, more than half the 

 area of Delaware, and less than one-fourth that of 

 Connecticut. 



Surface. The surface is a high, rolling prairie, 

 with narrow tracts of timber bordering the streams, 

 having an elevation of mre than 800 feet obove the 

 ocean near the northwest corner, of 484 feet in the 

 Illinois valley at Ottawa, and of 752 feet at Ransom. 

 In the southeast corner, (see table of elevations) it is 

 cut into four sections by the deep, narrow valleys of 



