186 



^0^65 on Illinois. 



exceedingly fertile, covered with fazendas, (farms,) and generally well cults- 

 vated. ( 



" The next diversity of country was the Serra Acima, the great ridges of 

 clay covered with immense forests of timber. A considerable part of these 

 seem to consist of mounds of earth without any admixture of rock. We 

 saw, in some places, deep sections of the hills, where either a part had 

 fallen away, or it had been cut down. They presented perpendicular faces 

 of earth, some of them near a hundred feet deep, into whicti the roots of lofty 

 trees had penetrated to an incredible depth, almost realizing the poet's descrip- 

 tion, that they had extended as far below, as the branches above the surface 

 of the soil. In many of these vast heaps of clay, we could not detect a stone 

 as large as a boy's marble. 



" The next variety of surface presented to us was the rocky serras, which 

 rose like huge walls from the surface of the plains, bearing in their bosoms 

 the metalliferous veins, and impregnating all the soil at their bases with the 

 particles of precious ore washed down them. , The features of this region 

 were very extraordinary, and had no kind of affinity with the former two. 

 The summits of these naked stony ridges were often surmounted by fantas- 

 tic protuberances, which the inhabitants imagined had human resemblances. 

 One was called Ita Columi, or the child of stone ; and another, Serra da Cava, 

 from its likeness to an enormous visage. From this stony Arabia, we entered 

 into the mato or thicket ; low eminences^ covered over with copse and brush- 

 wood, frequently interspersed with ferns and brambles, resembling similar 

 soil and aspect, in the middle regions of Europe. 



Finally, we passed between bristly pikes, and conical mountains of bare 

 granite, ascending to the sky, with well defined forms, and smooth taper 

 surfaces, not having the most distant resemblance to any other objects we 

 had passed."— Vol. 2. ch. 12. 



We hope soon to lay a very interesting account before our readers of the 

 now celebrated gold region, in the southern parts of the United States. 

 With some irrelevant exceptions, the Rev'd. Mr. Walsh's able account of 

 the gold country in Brazil, would be an exact mineralogical description of 

 some of the veins in North Carolina. We were exceedingly struck with 

 this resemblance. — Editor. 



NOTES ON ILLINOIS. 

 Our readers, we think, cannot but be pleased with the extract 

 we are about to present them with, from the Illinois Monthly 

 Magazine, for July, 1831. A work so much devoted to the 

 natural history, the manners, customs, and literature of ' the far 

 west,' carries an intrinsic value with it, that will soon be gene- 

 rally appreciated. It speaks volumes for the intelligence of the 

 inhabitants of the western states, that a work so truly American, 

 and so meritoriously conducted, should have appeared amongst 

 them. — Ed. 



WILD ANIMALS. 



The buffaloe has entirely left us. Before the country was settled, our 

 immense prairies afforded pasturage to large herds of this animal, and the 

 traces of them are still remaining, in the " buffaloe paths" which are to be 

 seen m se veral jiarts of the state. These are well beaten tracks, leading 



