62 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



cut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and a 

 few from Virginia, and other Southern States. And 

 should Congress, previous to the land sales, take judi- 

 cious steps to prevent speculators from monopolizing 

 the land, the same wealth will continue to flow into the 

 State till we possess a "mammoth Bank" of wealth so 

 "monstrous" that no power of "government" can "veto" 

 it. If the pre-emption right of purchasing the quarter 

 section on which all settlers reside at the time the land 

 comes into market, is granted, it will prevent non-resi- 

 dents from obtaining large bodies of land; a circum- 

 stance which always injures the rapid growth of a 

 country. If this land is not offered for sale till the sum- 

 mer of 1836, there will probably be more actual settlers 

 upon it, than were ever before known in any land district 

 at the time of sale. 



I know from experience and observation, that a great 

 many persons have a very incorrect idea of the forma- 

 tion of a Prairie country. I will correct them: — The 

 prevailing impression is, I believe, that it is a perfect 

 level tract of land, destitute of timber; and that unless 

 the soil is so loose and sandy as to render it invaluable, 

 it consequently must be very wet. But such is not the 

 case. Although there is level wet Prairie as well as 

 timbered land, yet the general face of the country in 

 this part of the State is more undulating than the heavy 

 timbered land south of the Wabash. Not many miles 

 from my residence, there is a tract of entire open Prairie 

 that is really too hilly for pleasant cultivation. In the 

 vallies run clear streams of water, over pebbly bottoms, 

 often in channels more deep than wide, which are so 

 overhung with the luxuriant foilage of the rich banks, 

 as entirely to conceal the stream from view; and its 

 presence is only known on approaching it, by the differ- 

 ance in the appearance of the grass. All of these streams 

 abound in fish, corresponding in size to the size of the 

 stream; and in some of the small lakes, (even those 

 having neither inlet nor outlet,) they are very large. 



