WIXNEBAGO COUNTY. 83 



are silvery and clear beyond any other river in the State; its bottom, 

 for the most part, rocky and sandy, its current swift and strong, its 

 flow and volume constant. Heavy water powers at Beloit, Rocktou and 

 Rorkford afford splendid manufacturing facilities; and all along the 

 stream, every few miles, dams might be constructed which would cause 

 thousands of busy wheels to toil in the service of man. At these three 

 places scores of fouuderies, factories, machine shops, manufacturing 

 establishments, paper mills, grain mills and other similar enterprises, 

 attest the capabilities and power of this magnificent river. 



The next stream in size is the Pecatouica river. It enters the county 

 on the west, some eight miles from its south-western corner, and flows 

 in a general east and north course, about twenty miles, to near the town 

 of Kockton, where it mingles its turbid waters with the bright, flashing 

 currreut of Rock river. If possible, its course is more tortuous and its 

 waters more muddy in Winnebago than in Stephenson county. Sugar 

 river comes in from the north-west, and enters the Pecatonica near the 

 village of Shirlaud. Both these streams have bottoms of rich, deep 

 alluvium, from one to perhaps three miles wide. Xeither of them atford 

 any water-power. Both of them, we believe, are dammed in the water- 

 mill sense of the term : but such lazy rivers will never make whirling 

 wheels hum the songs of busy labor. The two branches of the Kish- 

 waukee unite near the south-eastern corner of the county, and flow on, 

 a considerable stream, until their commingled waters fall into Rock 

 river, in the township of Xew Milford. Killbuck creek, in the south- 

 east : Kent creek, coming in at Rockford; the Kinnikinick creeks, in 

 the neighborhood of Roscoe; and another considerable stream, a tribu- 

 tary of Sugar river, in the north-west, are the most important of the 

 smaller streams, and with their little feeding tributaries afford plenty 

 of water for agricultural purposes, together with a number of light 

 water-powers. 



Some of the Indian names of these streams have a very descriptive 

 significance. Pecatouica. as before-mentioned, means "crooked stream, 77 

 or "muddy waters." and so far as the stream is descriptive of the name, 

 it ought to mean them both. Sinissippi, the Indian name of Rock river, 

 signifies '-the rocky river.*' Kishwatikee means -'clear waters, 77 a name 

 reasonably descriptive of the streams. Wiimebago means "the fish 

 eaters." 



Taking, therefore, all things into consideration, Winnebago county is 

 hardly so good a county for agricultural purposes as its western neigh- 

 bor, Stephenson. The soil is hardly so fat ; the amount of poor land is 

 proportionally greater. But taking into account its manufacturing in- 

 terests and facilities, the unexampled fertility and Rhine-like beauty of 



