MARSHALL AND PUTNAM COUNTIES. 203 



west of the Illinois river. The former are flatter, tougher, and blacker ; the 

 latter, are more rolling, dryer, and lighter. The Illinois river bottoms, 

 through Marshall county, partake of their usual characteristics. Oil 

 the east side the -bluffs, for most of the distance through the county, 

 come close to the river. In some places, as at Lacon, a high terrace or 

 table land rims back ; and in one or two bends of the river are the 

 usual sloughs and willow swamps. On the west side there is a broad 

 table land or second bottom, extending from the north line of the county 

 down to Sparland, widening out about Henry to eight or nine miles be- 

 tween the river and the low bluff line on the west. This tract of land is 

 called the i4 Crow Meadows." It is beyond the reach of the inundations 

 of the river, is of unsurpassed richness and fertility, although inclining 

 slightly to a sandy plain ; is thickly settled, and is und'er the highest 

 state of cultivation. The flourishing town of Henry on the Illinois river, 

 and also on the railroad between Peoria and Chicago, is built up in 

 great part by this fine agricultural region surrounding it. The rest of the 

 bottom, averaging a mile or two in width, is made up of the usual allu- 

 vial deposits sand banks, mud flats, sloughs and marshes, willow 

 thickets, meadows of coarse grass and pea vines, skirting strips of heavy 

 timber land the whole subject to frequent overflows, which precipitate 

 over it a fine silt or mud, richer than the Nile ever sifted over its rich 

 valley in Egypt. 



Geology of the County. 



The three divisions of the Drift deposit are easily recognized in this 

 county. The alluvial bottoms of the Illinois river are the most recent, 

 and have already been sufficiently referred to. They are mostly com- 

 posed of fine mud and sand and various mixtures of these two substances, 

 with occasional banks of recent river gravel. The Illinois river bottom 

 is composed of two, and perhaps three, different kinds or ages of bottom 

 land. First, there is the present flood plain of the stream, embracing 

 all the low, flat lands liable to inundation by the almost annual over- 

 flowing of the river. The difference in this stream between low and ex- 

 treme high water mark is some twenty-three feet, if we have been cor- 

 rectly informed. When extremely low, the river winds along among 

 expanses of fine, yellowish sand, and black silt-like mud, and is a mode- 

 rate sized, slow-flowing body of water. When at extreme high water 

 mark, it spreads over a vast expanse of low laud, almost washing the 

 bluft's and terraces on either side, and becomes a broad amber-colored, 

 muddy expanse of water. Every year this flood deposits over the flood 

 plain mud, silt, and sand. Cultivation is making the face of the coun- 

 try dryer ; the volume of the stream is slightly diminishing in size ; the 



