LETTER IX. 



The Ague : Opinion of a leading Physician. Easily curable. Wisconsin. 

 Life-guardsman turned Implement Maker. Success of Emigrants. Madison. 

 Milwaukee. Its Trade Facilities. Schools. Public Buildings. Catholic 

 Church. Western Shore of Lake Michigan. General Nature of Country. 

 Green Bay. Early French Settlements. Their Hold in the North- West. 

 Character of various Races of Settlers. Price of Land. Its Value dependent 

 on cheap Access. Interest of Money. Credit low. " Custom" pleaded for 

 Abuses. London Carpenter's Experience as a Settler. The Mississippi. 

 Nails and Glass only allowed by American Government to their Surveying 

 Engineers. River Steamers. Anecdotes. Lake Pepin. St. Croix. 



I HAVE already referred to the risk of fever and ague which 

 every emigrant to the western states must face. Before leaving 

 Chicago I had an interview with a leading^physician, who has 

 been twenty years in practice in Illinois, and who kindly fa- 

 voured me with his experience on this subject. He has found 

 ague easily curable by proper management. It is usually pre- 

 ceded by diarrhoea and followed by fever, and the whole may 

 be greatly mitigated, and even averted, by preventive and re- 

 medial treatment. It is caused in his opinion by excessive 

 heat when it follows a moist summer. Summers of great heat, 

 when the thermometer, for four or six weeks, is continuously 

 92, 94, or so in the shade, are always followed by an un- 

 healthy season. Such seasons have been observed to come in 

 succession at intervals of about ten years. For some years 

 back there has been little sickness in the western states. But 

 last year there was a great deal. In all new countries in these 

 latitudes, especially after the ground is newly broken, he con- 



