CHAPTEK XYIII. 



SANGAMON COUNTY 



Sangamon couiity lies nearly in the geographical center of the State, 

 and embraces an area of sixteen full and several fractional townships, 

 or about eight hundred and seventy-five square miles. The surface is 

 generally quite level, or gently rolling; the general prairie level being 

 from fifty to seventy-five feet above the Saugamon river. It is bounded 

 on the north by Menard and Logan counties, on the east by Macoii and 

 Christian counties, on the south by Christian, Montgomery and Ma- 

 coupin, and on the west by Morgan, Cass and Meuard. 



The Sangamon river traverses the entire extent of the county from 

 east to west, and with its tributaries furnishes a reasonable supply of 

 water, in ordinary seasons. This stream, as well as its main affluents, 

 are skirted with belts of excellent timber, which makes this one of the 

 best timbered counties in the central portion of the State. About one- 

 third of the county was originally covered with timber, but much of 

 the timbered land has been cleared up and brought under cultivation. 

 The principal varieties of timber observed in this county are the follow- 

 ing and it will be seen that the list embraces nearly every variety of 

 forest tree that is found in the central portion of the State : Sugar and 

 white maple, buckeye, shellbark hickory, swamp hickory, mocher nut 

 and thick shellbark hickory, hornbeam, serviceberry, hackberry, red 

 bud, dogwood, red thorn, black thorn, persimmon, waahoo, white, blue 

 and black ash, coffee nut, black and white walnut, mulberry, sycamore, 

 cotton wood, wild plum, wild cherry, crab apple, white oak, scarlet oak, 

 chestnut oak, laurel oak, red oak, pin oak, swamp white oak, bur oak, 

 sumac, elder, sassafras, linden, willow, American elm, slippery elm, 

 prickly ash, pawpaw, red birch, hazel, spiceberry and honey locust. 



The superficial deposits in this county comprise the three principal 

 divisions of the Quaternary: alluvium, loess and drift. Narrow belts of 

 alluvial bottom skirt the Saugamon through a large part of its course 

 in this county, but they are subject to be annually overflowed by the 

 river floods, and are most valuable for the heavy growth of timber they 

 sustain. 



