290 Account of a Remarkable Fossti Tree. 
‘“‘ These appearances characterize the river Des Plaines 
from its source near the Millewacky of lake Michigan to the 
point of its junction mith the Kankakee. The latter stream 
also flows, in its whole length, through rich and level prai- 
ries and savannahs, where there is scarcely a hill to inter- 
cept the view. In some places it is overshadowed by scat- 
tering clumps of oaks, which throw a refreshing coolness 
over its banks, but most commonly its waters are exposed to 
the direct rays of the sun. Such too, is the rural complex- 
ion of the banks of the Llinois, from the confluence of | its 
principal tributaries, at the fossil tree, to the lower extremi- 
ty of Peoria lake, and if we survey the entire valley of the 
Mississippi, with all its confluent rivers, for that portion of it 
which has been distinguished by the hand of nature as pre- 
eminently beautiful to the eye, it is this! But it is not alone 
to the sylvan exterior of the country—to the pleasing varie~ 
ty and succession of prairies, forests, streams, and precipi- 
ces ; or to the geological arrangement of its strata and soils, 
that we find our reflections irresistibly directed. Every 
emotion raised by the contemplation of pastoral and pictur- 
esque objects, must yield to considerations of the national 
and domestic purposes, to which it is so admirably adapted 
by its fine climate, and productive soil. We cannot survey, 
without a feeling of calm delight, a country prepared for the 
future abode of millions of the human species who are des- 
tined to augment our national resources, and to transmit to 
posterity the blessings of our republican institutions : and 
perhaps there are few individual scenes along the valley of | 
the Illinois where the observer will partake of a higher grat- 
ification from these sources, than those furnished by the re- 
gion characterized by the confluence of the Des Plaines with 
the Kankakee, the conspicuous locality of the subject of this 
paper. , ; ) 
* It is to the latter class of depositions—to the seconda- 
ry series, and to the latest, deposits of this series, that we must | 
refer the sandstone of the river Des Plaines, in which we 
find a walnut, of mature growth, enveloped by, and imbed- 
ded in the rock, in the most complete state of mineraliza- 
tion: and since all geological writers who subscribe to the 
Neptunian origin of the earth, are constrained to employ the 
agency of oceanic depositions of different eras, in explaining 
the structure of the earth’s surface, it is one of the most ob- 
