INTRODUCTION. XXXV 
Tempered, as well in summer as in winter, by the vast expanse of water which 
surrounds it, and which, except at the immediate surface, is almost always at 40° 
Fahrenheit, its climate is milder, at once, and more equable, than any part of Wis- 
consin, whether it be on the mainland of Lake Superior, or further south on the 
Mississippi. Chiefly for this reason, but also on account of the bracing winds that 
sweep across the lake, Madeline Island is probably not surpassed, in point of health, 
by any locality throughout the entire Western country. 
The prairie country, based on rocks belonging to the Devonian and Carboniferous 
Systems, extending up the valleys of the Red Cedar, Iowa, and Des Moines, as high 
as latitude 42° or 42° 31’, presents a body of arable land, which, taken as a whole, 
for richness in organic elements, for amount of saline matter, and due admixture of 
earthy silicates, affords a combination that belongs only to the most fertile upland 
plains. 
Throughout this district, the general levelness of the surface, interrupted only by 
gentle swells and moderate undulations, offers facilities for the introduction of all 
those aids which machinery is daily adding to diminish the labour of cultivation, 
and render easy and expeditious the collection of an abundant harvest. There are, 
it is true, limited spots, less desirable for farming purposes, where the ground is liable 
to be overflowed by the adjacent streams, in times of freshets, and where local geo- 
logical causes operate to alter the composition of the soil; or where, from too uniform 
a flatness of ground, near the sources of streams, water stagnates; these form, how- 
ever, but a small fraction of the whole. 
The greatest drawback to the settler in these portions of Iowa, is the limited 
extent of timber, which is chiefly found in belts and groves lining the borders of 
rivers, gradually diminishing in quantity, as a general rule, towards their heads. 
This disadvantage is in part counterbalanced by the ease with which a farm can be 
commenced and brought under cultivation. 
Nevertheless, with proper economy and a little forethought, an ample supply both 
of fuel and fencing timber, may, in most instances, be insured. Again, the great 
extent of the coal district, throughout a large area of this prairie country, renders 
the consumption of timber for fuel unnecessary. 
The portion of Iowa which is most deficient in timber is north of latitude 42°, 
especially on the dividing ridges. North of this latitude, between the head waters 
of Three and Grand Rivers, there are distances of ten or fifteen miles without any 
timber; while between the waters of Grand River, the Nodoway, and the Nishna- 
botona, the open prairie is often twenty miles wide, without a bush to be seen 
higher than the wild indigo and the compass plant. The soil, too, in this region, 
is generally of inferior quality to that south of latitude 41° 30’. 
After passing latitude 42° 30’, and approaching the southern confines of the 
Coteau des Prairies, a desolate, barren, knobby country commences, where the 
