60 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



interlock with the waters of the Kankakee,) and empties 

 into the Lake 12 miles south east of Chicago, and 1 mile 

 and a half west of the Indiana line. The water within 

 the bar is 25 to 30 feet deep, but over the bar there is 

 sometimes not over 3 feet. There is also another mouth 

 which can easily be made navigable, about a dozen miles 

 west of Michigan City. No doubt good harbors and 

 towns will be made at both mouths in time, as well as at 

 several points at the head of deep water on several of 

 the principal streams, forming good markets for the sur- 

 plus produce of the adjoining Prairies. 1 



Nearly all of the land 10 or 12 miles wide around 

 the South end of Lake Michigan is of very poor quality, 

 and worthless except in places where well timbered. A 

 round Chicago it is wet Prairie ; but a few feet above the 

 level of the Lake, and the land is much like the flat beach 

 land of the South. Forty miles west of Chicago is the 

 "Fox river country," which is high dry Prairie, with 

 rapid streams running over solid beds of limestone, on 

 the banks of which are groves of good timber, though a 

 very small supply for the great extent of open Prairie. 

 South West of Chicago on the route of the Illinois Canal, 

 on the Ouplane river, 2 it is also limestone country, with 

 but little timber, but a supply of stone-coal. The junction 

 of this river with the Kankakee forms the Illinois river. 

 Some forty miles above the mouth of the Ouplane, on 

 the East side and near the new and flourishing town of 

 Juliet, 3 empties Hickory creek, which became so cele- 

 brated in the "last Indian war." It was then an ex- 

 treme frontier settlement, and far detached from any 

 other. Far different is it now. 



From the mouth of the Ouplane the Kankakee is a 

 fine rapid stream, with high banks, limestone bottom; 

 high Prairie, but little timber, up to the Indiana line. 



1 Witness East Chicago, Indiana Harbor, Hammond, Gary, and 

 Whiting, Indiana. 



2 Des Plaines River. 

 "Joliet, Illinois. 



