Author: Timothy FlintPublisher: Rarebooksclub.com
ISBN: 9781458919175
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1833 edition. Excerpt: ...by a mouth one hundred yards wide, and is boatable one hundred and. forty miles. From its position, and the excellence of its lands, it is one of the most important rivers of the state. Chariton, Otter, 'Apple, and Macoupin rivers, are all considerable streams that water fine tracts of country. On the north side of the Illinois, the rivers that enter on that shore, have their courses, for the most part, in mountainous bluffs, which often approach near the river. For a great distance above its mouth, the river is almost as straight as a canal; has in summer scarcely a perceptible current, and the waters, though transparent, have a marshy taste to a degree to be almost unpotable. The river is wide and deep; 'and for the greater part of its width, is filled with aquatic weeds to such a degree that no person could swim among them. Only a few yards width in the centre of the stream is free from them. It enters the Mississippi through a deep forest, by a mouth four hundred yards wide. Perhaps no river of the western country has so fine a boatable navigation for such a great distance, or waters a richer and more luxuriant tract of country. On the banks of this river, the first French immigrants from Canada fixed themselves; and hero was the scenery on which they founded their extravagant paintings of the western country. By a moderate amount of labor and expense, this river might be united with the Chicago of lake Michigan. Appropriations have already been made by the state for the canal that is intended to effectuate this purpose. We have already remarked, that at certain seasons of the year, boats of five tons burden already pass through the morass, from one extremity of which, the waters are discharged into the Chicago of lake Michigan; and...
