GKOIvOGY OF I.A SAIvIvE: COUNTY. 



63 



Wenona to forty-eig'ht inches in the Caledonia, while 

 Nos. 3, 4 and 5 change from coal to black shales. The 

 thickness of a bed at one point is no index to its thick- 

 ness at another, and besides its thickness the character 

 of the roof, the quantity of water to be removed per 

 minute and the first cost of a shaft require careful 

 consideration. A thick bed of quicksand may double 

 the cost of the work, and a poor roof may render the 

 working- very dangerous, if not impossible. 



SCENERY OF LA SALLE COUNTY. 



Scenery. — No county in the State possesses finer 

 scenery and more of it than La Salle. The valleys of 

 the Illinois and Big Vermillion afford splendid views at 

 almost every point, and some of them are not often 

 equalled, seldom surpassed. 



The Illinois a little east of Ottawa begins to cut 

 its channel into the St. Peters, and before it reaches 

 Utica has chiseled its way through that to the calcifer- 

 ous; consequently, its bluffs present the full thickness 

 of the St. Peters, which often form precipices of 100 

 to 140 feet in heighth more or less perpendicular, vari- 

 ously colored where the rock is naked, but often 

 clothed with verdant robes of lichens, mosses, plants 

 and shrubs, with an occasional pine or cedar towering 

 up from this lofty watch tower, as if standing sentinel 

 over the lovely valley and fair river below. 



These bluifs are pierced by many openings, the 

 portals to narrow ravines, cut deep in the soft rock, 

 through which small streams flow to the river. These 

 sometimes descend from the prairie by a series of 

 rapids, sometimes by a number of cascades, occasion- 

 ally by a single leap of 60 to 110 feet. These ravines 

 are cool, damp and beautiful at all seasons, as much so 



