FACE OF THE COUNTRY PRAIRIES. 421 



at the commencement and termination of the journey, was 

 undulating-, the swells being long and considerable, without a 

 lake, pond, or marsh being visible, except in one instance. On 

 approaching Springfield, the surface became level without being 

 wet, and from this village until I crossed the Mississippi the 

 \vettest parts of the surface might have been rendered dry by 

 the ordinary means of ditching. 



The feature in the surface of Illinois, which chiefly dis 

 tinguishes it from the eastern states and the Canadas, is the 

 prairies, or tracts which are free from timber. I imagine 

 prairies to be natural productions ; they may be termed grass 

 fields, and are of every size and shape, being separated from each 

 other by tracts of forest. Americans, whose ideas of an unin 

 habited country are associated with interminable forests, have 

 speculated on the origin of prairies, w r hich they regard as an 

 anomaly in nature, and assign their existence to man. A 

 Scotchman, accustomed to the bleak naked mountains, and 

 artificial forests of his own country, may take an opposite 

 view of a prairie, and support his opinion by the state of the 

 earth s surface after the flood, which would be without trees. 

 But the forest and prairie surfaces of Illinois stand in the re 

 lation of water and land on the face of the earth, both being 

 the handiwork of nature, and forming bays, peninsulas, straits, 

 isthmuses, lakes, islands, and every other form of outline which 

 charm the eye and delight the imagination. To the indivi 

 dual who has long been immured in the forest, the effect of 

 prairie scenery is enchanting ; and the inhabitant of a culti 

 vated and thickly peopled country, who can gaze on the love 

 ly, the lonely, and the rich prairies of Illinois without emotion 

 towards God and his fellow-creatures must be void of feeling. 



The different published accounts of Illinois represent one- 

 half of the surface of the state to be prairie, but it is probable 

 none of the writers, or any one individual, has had a proper 

 opportunity of forming an opinion on the subject. In the 

 course of my journey, nineteen-twentieths of the country ap 

 peared to be prairie ; but the forest tract is chiefly in the 

 south, which I did not visit. It is however certain a vast 

 extent of prairie lies north of latitude 39. An English travel 

 ler informed me he found the prairie country unchanged 500 



