Identifier: illinoisasitisit00ingerh (find matches)
Title: Illinois as it is : its history, geography, statistics, constitution, laws, government, finances, climate, soil, plants, animals, state of health, prairies, agriculture, cattle-breeding, orcharding, cultivation of the grape, timber-growing, market-prices, lands and land-prices, geology, mining, commerce, banks, railroads, public institutions, newspapers, etc., etc.
Year: 1857 (1850s)
Authors: Gerhard, Frederick Illinois History Collection ICarbs
Subjects:
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Keen and Lee Philadelphia : Charles desilver
Contributing Library: Morris Library, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Digitizing Sponsor: CARLI: Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois

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be found, unefPaced by the hand of Time, the marks and traces.left by the water, which was formerly much higher, and graduallylowered; whence it may be safe to conclude, that where now the fer-tile prairies of Illinois extend, and the rich soil of the country yieldsits golden harvests, must have once been a vast sheet of water, themud deposited by which formed the soil, thus accounting for the pre-sent great fertility of the country. In relation to the quality of its soils, Illinois is generally dividedas follows: First, the alluvial land on the margins of the rivers, and extendingwith a breadth varying from half a mile or a mile to sevtn or eight miles.Wherever it is elevated, this country is of an extraordinary fertility;at those places where it is low, and consequently exposed to inunda-tions, it is a very unsafe matter to attempt cultivating it. The mostextensive tract of alluvial land is the so-called American Bottom,which was thus named at the time it formed the western boundary
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GEOGRAPHY. 217 of the United States; it stretcHes from the junction of the Kaskaskiawith the Mississippi, along the latter to the mouth of the Missouri,containing about 450 square miles, or 288,000 acres. Secondly, the table-land, fifty to a hundred feet higher than thealluvial land; this commences at the slopes, by which the latter isencompassed; it consists principally of prairies, which, according totheir respectively higher or lower situations, are either dry, or humidand marshy. Thirdly, the somewhat hilly sections of the State, which, alternatelyconsisting of wood and prairie, are on the whole not as fertile as eitherthe alluvial or the table land. The soil of Illinois is unsurpassed in fertility by that of any otherState, there being no room for doubt, that at the time it shall havebeen settled throughout its entire extent, the produce of its harvestswill surpass that of many other States together. Where in the worldcould a fertility be found equal to-that of the American Botto

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