CHAPTEK VII. 



OGLE COUNTY. 



This large and excellent county is bounded on the north by parts of 

 Stephenson and Winnebago counties ; on the east, by DeKalb county ; 

 on the south, by Lee county ; and on the west by Carroll county, and a 

 small portion of Whiteside county, just touching it on the south-west 

 corner. It is thirty-nine miles from east to west, and about twenty-one 

 miles from north to south, containing eighteen full townships of land, 

 and about seven half townships. It, therefore, contains about seven 

 hundred and seventy-three sections, or square miles. 



Eock river, here a broad-flowing, swift, bubble-dancing stream, flows 

 in a diagonal direction across the county, entering it about twelve miles 

 from its north-east corner, and making its exit about eight miles east of 

 its south-east corner. For most of this distance the stream sweeps 

 along in long, undulating curves, except at Grand DeTour, where it 

 doubles upon itself in short abrupt crooks. The river valley here is un- 

 like itself further north and south. The face of the country along the 

 river is abrupt, rough, broken and timbered. In only a few places do 

 the prairie vistas open down to the water's edge, affording glimpses of 

 the broad undulating plains, which open so wide beyond, that the blue 

 of the sky and the green of the rolling sward seem to mingle in a far off 

 blending. The little streams on either side have cut down through the 

 hills, leaving bold outcrops of the Trenton limestones and St. Peter's 

 sandstone. 



To one familiar with the sublimity and grandeur of mountain scenery, 

 as displayed in Alpine regions, or among the canons and wonders of 

 our own Sierra Nevada or Rocky Mountain chains, where the slow-mov- 

 ing glacier creeps among eternal rocks down to the evergreen forests 

 and the smiling valleys ; where the mountain-born torrent leaps in foam 

 along its rocky channel ; where gorge and precipice and adamantine 

 rocks, in wild confusion piled, fill the soul with awe to one, I say, fa- 

 miliar with such scenes as these, the scenery along Eock river, in Ogle 

 county, may seem tame ; but to the inhabitant of the prairies, accus- 



