.TOWNS & VILLAGES.—BOOK II. 
125 
one hundred acres, and something higher than the river bottom. 
There is a second bank about twenty feet higher than this, up¬ 
on which the town begins at present to extend; this is merely a 
slip, however, and bounded by a third bank, eighty feet above the 
level of the river: there are also scattered houses for some dis- 
tance up each branch of the Gabourie. West of the town, and also 
north of the Gabourie, the country is high and somewhat broken. 
The soil is a yellow clayin places strewed with horn stone, but 
produces good wheat. The timber, has been nearly all destroy¬ 
ed for the use of the inhabitants. In front of the town, on the 
Mississippi, there is a fine bottom, commencing from the Ga¬ 
bourie, and extending eight or nine miles down the river; and 
for the greater part of that distance, three miles in width. The 
common field under fence, contains seven thousand acres.—*. 
There are six stores, and in the course of the present year, the 
imports might amount to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 
St. Genevieve is a rising town; a greater number of buildings 
have been erected here than at St. Louis, and preparations arc 
making for building a number more in the course of the next 
season. There are two brick yards. A very handsome edifice 
has been erected of limestone, on the hill, commanding an ele¬ 
gant prospect of the river, the American bottom, and of the hills 
on the other side of the Kaskaskia. This building is intended 
as an academy, but unfortunately, those gentlemen who gener¬ 
ously undertook this work, have not been able fully to succeed, 
from the want of proper support. 
The population of St. Genevieve including New Bourbon, 
amounts to 1,400. There is about the same proportion of slaves, 
as at St. Louis; the number of Americans is also about the same. 
There was formerly a village of Piorias below the town, but 
they abandoned it some time ago. 
This appears also to have been one of those spots pitched up¬ 
on by former and numerous nations of Indians as a place of resi¬ 
dence. In the bottom there are a number of large mounds.— 
Barrows, and places of interment, are every where to be seen. 
The mouth of the Gabourie is about one mile and an half 
aboye the town; it is the landing place and harbor of boats; afid 
