CHAPTER XI. 



HEXRY COUXTV. 



Henry county i.s bounded on the north by Whiteside county and Rock 

 river; on the west by Rock Island and Mercer counties; on the south 

 by'Knox and Stark counties ; and on the east by Bureau county. It is a 

 very large county, being thirty miles long and thirty miles broad, and ly- 

 ing in the form of an exact square, with the exception of about two town- 

 ships cut off from the north-west corner in a sort of triangular-shaped 

 piece, by Rock river. It consequently contains about eight hundred and 

 twenty-five square miles. The surface of the county is made up mostly 

 <>f a high, rolling, fertile prairie, in places breaking into rough ridges 

 and ravines. For a few miles back from Rock river, in the north-western 

 part of the county, and about Minersville, the laud almost approaches 

 the character of barrens, being interspersed with ravines and elevated 

 ridges, partially covered by a somewhat stunted growth of oak tim- 

 ber. About the north eastern corner, the prairie becomes somewhat 

 sandy, rising occasionally into white hillocks of sand, cut into pictur- 

 esque shapes by the prairie winds. Across the northern part of the 

 county, the broad valley of Green river is level, and chiefly composed of 

 swamp lands, of which there is estimated to be some fifty thousand 

 acres. This valley is rather a low, wet, swampy prairie, than a regular 

 river valley. Green river enters the county from the east, about eight 

 miles from the north-east corner, and flows almost directly west across 

 the county, through the second tier of townships, until it enters Rock 

 river, a few miles south-west of Coloua. For a part of this distance, it 

 is rather a succession of swamps than a river. At other places, it is a 

 broad sheet of stagnant water, almost lost among the reeds, rushes, and 

 tall grass; but towards its outlet into Rock river, these waters gather 

 into a stream of considerable size and depth, with scarcely an apprecia- 

 ble current a slow. lazy, stagnant stream, oozing along amid a deposit 

 of black, greasy looking mud green with its coat of August scum, a 

 very Styx of a stream, on whose filthy, scummy surface intermittent 

 fevers and agues seem to play, like half-concealed, restless ghosts. Such 



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