the capital town.

Elk Lick is medicinal.

Clarksville and Louisiana are villages on the Missisippi within this county. Ralls county, on the river, next north of Pike, has some branches of Salt River passing through it, and Spencer's Creek. It is said also to have good springs. Iron, sulphur, and coal are found within it. New London is the county

seat.

.

Palmyra is the Here is the land

Marion county has a portion of its lands drained by Salt River, North and South Creeks, and North and South Fabius. It has coal of a good quality, and it is said to possess nitre in great abundance. There are several salt springs. As nitre is an element of fertility, the county should be productive, and it is considered to be so. There are many mills on the streams within the county. capital, a very handsome flourishing town. office for the northern district of this out on the river, called Marion City. river, is a flourishing town, and a place of some trade. Salt River, which has been mentioned as passing through portions of this county and Pike, is the largest stream between the Missouri and Des Moines, flowing into the Missisippi.

state. A town is laid Hannibal, also on the

Lewis county is north of Marion. It is advantageously situated on the Missisippi, being favored with two or more good landings. The site of La Grange is high and dry. The county is watered by Wyaconda, North, and South Fabius, and Fox creeks. Monticello, in the centre, is the county seat.

North of Lewis, and the most northerly river county in the State, is Clarke. The land of this, as of the last county, is good, the soil becoming better toward the northern part of the State, than in the counties lower down, near the

137

Missouri. St. Francisville is the principal town, situated on the Des Moines River.

Warren, Montgomery, Callaway, Boone, Howard, Chariton, Carroll, Ray, Clay, Platte, Buchanan, Andrew, Holt, Allen.

This range of counties on the Missouri contain generally a richer soil than those on the Missisippi. Howard county is populous, well timbered, abounding in coal, not of the best quality so far as worked, and watered by several small creeks. The large streams called Chariton and Grand River flow into the Missouri in Chariton and Carroll counties. Boone is the second county in the State in population, next to St. Louis; Howard is the third. Boone contains about, or exceeding, 25,000. Howard over 20,000, estimating from former rate of increase. Accurate information on this point, at this time, however, is wanting. Callaway, Clay and Ray are also populous counties. The tract comprising Howard, Boone and Callaway must be considered the best in the State, as it is the most populous. It is inhabited by farmers, whose industrious and skilful cultivation of the excellent land upon which they have settled, has made them easy in circumstances, and developed the resources of a rich country. Columbia is the county seat of Boone, centrally located. Fayette is the capital of Howard. Glasgow, on the river, in the same county, is a flourishing town. The southern portion of the country, which is the subject of these notes, is passed with less observation than that comprised within the territories, as being both better known, and also the less interesting to many, because more populated, and therefore offering less inducements to settlers. The soil also. below the Des Moines is inferior to that north of that river, and the country by no means so inviting. Portland, Frank

lin, Chariton on the river, and Carrol and Huntsville back from it, are towns of some importance.

It has already been said, in treating of the physical geography of this country, that it was remarkable for the great number of lakes.

The lake region extends from 49° to 43°, or over six degrees of latitude, and lies chiefly to the east of the Tchansansan (or James), in 98° of long. From the head waters of the Des Moines to the country about the heads of the Missisippi, they are so numerous on the western part of the valley, that a small addition to the water surface would make it doubtful whether it should be called land and lake, or sea and island. South of 43° the remaining four degrees of lat. to 39°, is traversed by a vast number of running streams; and these two portions may be very properly distinguished, with reference to these grand characteristics, as the river country and the lake country.

It will be at once perceived, on stating this difference in the hydrographical features of the country, that there is a corresponding difference in the topography; that the inclined plane of the southern portion, reaching its summit, is changed for the more level plane; and that the northern part is less cut and scooped by the numberless deep ravines that mark the lower country, serving it as channels for draining it into the principal streams.

The upper country is described by Nicollet as very beautiful, and affording many fine farm sites.

PART IV.

SOCIETY.-LAWS.-PURSUITS.-LIFE.-HABITS.-HEALTH. -PUBLIC LANDS.

THE population of the Upper Missisippi is of various origin and mixed character. The germ is French. Colonies from France, and from the French stock in Canada, were first established at several points in this valley; and, from time to time, the voyageurs, or French boatmen, and the coureurs des bois, or traders, have visited nearly every part of this extensive region, some of whom fixed a temporary residence, and others a permanent dwelling, among the native tribes, with whom they became mingled, and frequently connected by marriage. The descendants of these French, both of the unmixed and the mixed blood, are numerous in the country, and to them many accessions from the same race have been made in modern time by emigration from Canada. A great part of this population is illiterate though among them are many persons of good education, fine intellect, and a refinement, peculiar to their nation, beyond that of the best of the other population. Such may be found in the humble and laborious occupation of digging in the mines. I lodged in the house of a farmer, one of these people, on the banks of the Missouri, opposite to St. Charles, having the refinement of the French gentleman, and a mind capable of discharging

the functions of the highest offices in the nation. He had been acquainted with the country twenty-five or thirty years, and had been to the mountains, as many of these men do. It is not uncommon for young men of wealthy families in St. Louis to leave the refinements and luxuries of the city for a trading trip to the mountains, or to Santa Fé. To this initial population have been added, Germans, English, Scotch, Irish, and a mixture from each of the States. They are, of course, of every shade of character; and the traveller from the denser and older portions of the world would frequently have his astonishment excited, on entering a very rough log-cabin, consisting of one room, with a puncheon floor and mud chimney, to find a farmer of a cultivated mind and manners,* or a lady who has graced the gay and fashionable parties of the city, or, frequently, her superior, whom education has endowed with the solid and shining accomplishments of woman, and fitted for the highest spheres of life. Among these may be found, in most free intercourse and fellowship, the differing and various shades of character: the rough in extreme, but honest and worthy; the vulgar and clown of all shapes and dimensions, whether rich or poor, laboring or professional; the counterfeiter and horse-thief, sitting side by side with the judge and senator. There is a general and equal association of all persons, without regard to character, condition, or circumstances, making society one smooth and perfect level. This is not a very agreeable con

* The remarks of Mr. Birkbeck, an intelligent and observing Englishman, who came to Illinois about the period when it became a state, made in relation to the western people generally of that time, will, I think, well apply to the population now inhabiting this portion of it :-" Refinement," he says, "is unquestionably far more rare than in our mature and highlycultivated state of society; but so is extreme vulgarity. In every department of common life, we here see employed persons superior in habits and education to the same class in England."