from Huron to Detroit, generally a low flat country, susceptible of being drained and cultivated, the soil deep and rich.

From the river Rouge to lake St. Clair, distant twelve miles, the country resembles the suburbs of a large town, the houses being no more than twenty rods distant from each other, and the greater part of the way much closer. A road has lately been opened from the river Ecorce to the rapids of the Miami, a distance of sixty miles. Upon this road may be found many eligible situations for farms, and stands for taverns; and no where north of the cotton and sugar climate, could agriculturalists find a finer field for enterprise, or a surer prospect of reward.

There is no state or territory in North America so bountifully supplied with fish, water-fowls, and wild game. All the rivers from the Miami-of-the-lakes to the St. Josephs of lake Michigan, afford an inexhaustible supply of fish; to say nothing of the vast lakes which wash 600 miles of its frontier. The trout of Michilimackinac have a superior relish, and unlike most kinds of fish, never cloy the appetite by use; they weigh from ten to seventy pounds, and are taken at all seasons. White fish are canght in prodigious numbers with nets, in the strait of Detroit and lake St. Clair; and there are situations where a person, with a hook or spear, may soon catch as many as he can carry. Sturgeon are common to lakes Erie, St. Clair, Huron, and Michigan.

Myriads of ducks and wild geese frequent the rivers, bays, and lakes, and can be easily shot; for their fears seem to be drowned in the constant din of vociferous quakings, and in the incessant thunder of their wings. Wild turkeys, quails, grouse, pigeons, and hawks, are numerous; the latter are, perhaps, the most common land bird, the black bird excepted, which in autumn appear in swarms, and are injurious to corn and new sown wheat.

Wild game is plentiful; bears, wolves, elk, deer, foxes, beaver, otter, muskrats, marten, rackoon, wild cats, rabbits, and squirrels, are found in the forests: the beaver frequents the rivers running into lake Michigan.

Civil divisions, chief town, population, climate, diseases, &c. This territory is divided into four districts, which, by the census in 1800, contained 3,206 inhabitants; in 1810 they had increased to 4,762; being no more than 1,556 in ten years. There is no means of determining with accuracy the present population; but it probably

exceeds 12,000, exclusive of Indians. The settlement of this country will not of course, advance rapidly, until many of the new states in the western country are filled up; but such are its natural advantages, that it must attract notice, and ultimately have a station of considerable importance in the Union.-The following statement will show the relative numbers of inhabitants in the different districts in 1810.

4,762, including twenty-four slaves.

The town of Detroit is situated on the western side of the strait of St. Clair, or Detroit river, between lakes Erie and St. Clair, eighteen miles above Malden, on the Canada side of the river. The situation of the town is agreeable and romantic; the buildings approach close to the river bank, which is above twenty feet high, abrupt at the lower end of the town, but subsides into a gentle slope near the upper limits, where the plain on which it stands becomes about 500 yards wide. There are three streets running parallel with the river, and these are intersected by six cross streets, besides several lanes. The buildings are of brick, stone, frame, and, in some instances, hewn logs: but two-thirds are frame, some of which are very fine and painted. There are about 350 buildings of all descriptions, exclusive of the suburbs, extending above as far as lake St. Clair, and below as far as the river Rouge, which appear to be a continuation of the town: the principal streets are wide, and most of the houses have picketed gardens in the rear. The inhabitants are more than half of French extraction; the remainder consists of emigrants and adventurers from various parts of Europe and America.

The public buildings consist of the council-house, a large Roman catholic chapel, a jail, and a government storehouse; a fine brick building has been lately erected for a state-house. Detroit is a place of very considerable trade; several wooden wharfs project into the river, one of which is 140 feet long, and a vessel of 400 tons burden can approach its head. The stores and shops in the town are well furnished, and you may buy fine cloth, linen, and every article of wearing apparel, as good in their

kind, and nearly as cheap, as at New York or Philadelphia. The inhabitants are plentifully supplied with provisions of every description; the fish in particular, caught in the river and neighbouring lakes, are of a very superior quality, and in great abundance. There is a printingoffice here, in which French religious books are printed in a rude style; a weekly newspaper is also published: learning is at a low ebb, though there are many men of education and genius resident in the place. The streets of Detroit are generally crowded with Indians of one tribe or other, who collect here to sell their skins; at night, all those who are not admitted into private houses, and remain there quietly, are turned out of the town, and the gates shut upon them. The French inhabitants employed upon the lakes and rivers are very dexterous watermen ; and will navigate a small bark in a rough sea with incredible skill. They have nothing like enterprize in business, and are very fond of music, dancing, and smoaking tobacco: the women have generally lively and expressive countenances.

The fort stands on a low ridge, in the rear of the town, at the distance of about 200 yards. From the summit of this ridge, the country gradually subsides to a low swampy plain, from five to nine miles across, covered with thick groves of young timber. Beyond this plain commences a surface moderately hilly, and a soil more congenial to the growth of grain fruit, if not grass. The inhabitants have to draw their wood a mile and a half, from the United States lands in the rear of the town; it sells in market for three dollars a chord. Almost every farm has an orchard, in which apples, pears, and peaches thrive well; several hundred barrels of cider are annually made, which sells at a high price.

There is very little settlement on the west part of lake Huron, or on the east part of lake Michigan. All the Indian lands from the Miami of lake Erie nearly to Saganum bay, including those between that distance on lake Erie, the river Detroit, lake St. Clair, the river St. Clair, and lake Huron, and extending back to the westward about eighty miles, have been purchased by the United States. There is supposed to be included within this tract about 7,000,000 of acres, watered by the rivers Miami, Raisin, Huron, Rouge, Huron of lake St. Clair, Trent, and some branches of the Saganum. The lands on all those rivers are fertile, and capable of abundant productions; the country is generally level, and easy to be cultivated.

The diseases of this territory are chiefly fevers, agues, jaundice, and dysentery; the last often fatal to children: consumption is unfrequent.-The mortal epidemic disease of the winter 1813, traversed this country like a destroying angel, and swept off above 100 white men, besides many Indians.

The climate of the eastern part of the territory is nearly similar to that of the western counties of New York and Pennsylvania; towards the state of Indiana it is milder, but upon the coast of lakes Huron and St. Clair it is more severe, and winter approaches at least two weeks earlier than at Detroit; lake St. Clair is frozen over every year from December to February.

The Indians residing in this territory have been estimated at 3,000 souls; but this number has doubtless been considerably diminished by the battles which they fought, and the uncommon sufferings which they endured during the late war. Their trade is very valuable to their white neighbours. They all cultivate Indian corn, and some of them wheat, as well as most kinds of garden vegetables and fruit; raise horses, cattle, hogs, and poultry; but nevertheless derive a principal part of their subsistence from the waters and forests.

NORTH-WEST TERRITORY.

Situation, Boundaries, and Extent.

It is bounded on the

THIS territory is situated between 41° 45′ and 49° 37' N. lat. and 7° and 18° 50′ W. long. north by Upper Canada and lake Superior; south, by the states of Indiana and Illinois; east, by Upper Canada and lake Michigan; and west and south-west, by the Missis sippi river, which divides it from the Missouri territory. Its extent from north to south is about 360 miles, and from east to west 456 miles; comprising nearly 147,000 square miles, or 94,080,000 acres. This extensive country has not yet been organized into a regular government; but it is advancing rapidly into importance. Part of the United States troops are stationed at the village of Prairie du Chiens, near the confluence of the Ouisconsin with the Mississippi, and along the Ouisconsin and Fox rivers,

who will check and controul the Indians in that quarter; and, judging from the value of the country, and the great tide of emigration to the westward, we may conclude that the basis of a society will soon be formed, requiring the usual forms of government established in the other territories. No settlements of consequence, however, have yet been made, and the few inhabitants were not included in the last census.

Rivers. The rivers of this territory have three different directions; a part running northwardly into lake Superior; others westwardly into the Mississippi; and some eastwardly into lake Michigan and the river Illinois.

Fox river rises in the high lands on the north-eastern corner of the territory, near the Ouisconsin, and runs parallel with that river for fifty miles, at one place approaching within three miles of it. From thence it pursues a north-east course, and passing through Winnebago lake, falls into Green bay, a branch of lake Michigan.

Plein river, or Des Planes, described in page 572, enters the Illinois fifty-five miles south of the Chicago portage. This stream has four or five short rapids, that appear only in times of low water; in every other part it has the appearance of being a chain of stagnant pools and small lakes, affording a sufficient depth of water for boats of moderate draught.

The Depage rises a few miles west of the Plein, which it closely resembles in the heigh of its bluffs, width of its valley, soil and timber; it enters the Illinois seventy miles above the mouth of Plein.

Chicago river is merely an arm of the lake of that name, dividing itself into two branches, at the distance of a mile inland from its communication with the lake. The entrance of this river into lake Michigan is obstructed by a sand-bar, which could easily be removed, so as to admit vessels of any burden into the river; and the water-course which is already opened between the Chicago and Plein, needs but little more excavation to answer all the purposes of a canal; and to render the Plein and Illinois navigable for boats and flats, nothing is necessary but the construction of sluices wide enough to admit the boats to pass through them. Thus a water communication between the Illinois and lake Michigan may be kept open at all times, sufficient to answer every purpose for which a canal will be wanted for many years to come.

Between Chicago and Green bay the following rivers