lakes, is a strip of
heavy timber, with a thick undergrowth, which extends from half a mile
to two miles in width; but from thence to the bluffs, it is principally
prairie. It is interspersed with sloughs, lakes, and ponds, the most of
which become dry in autumn.

The soil of the American bottom is inexhaustibly rich. About the French
towns it has been cultivated, and produced corn in succession for more
than a century, without exhausting its fertilizing powers. The only
objection that can be offered to this tract is its unhealthy character.
This, however, has diminished considerably within eight or ten years.
The geological feature noticed in the last article--that all our bottoms
are higher on the margin of the stream, than towards the bluffs,
explains the cause why so much standing water is on the bottom land,
which, during the summer, stagnates and throws off noxious effluvia.
These lakes are usually full of vegetable matter undergoing
decomposition, and which produces large quantities of miasm. Some of the
lakes are clear and of a sandy bottom, but the most are of a different
character. The French settled near a lake or a river, apparently in the
most unhealthy places, and yet their constitutions are little affected,
and they usually enjoy good health, though dwarfish and shrivelled in
their form and features.

"The villages of Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, and Cahokia, were built
up by their industry in places where Americans would have perished.
Cultivation has, no doubt, rendered this tract more salubrious than
formerly; and an increase of it, together with the construction of
drains and canals, will make it one of the most eligible in the States.
The old inhabitants advise the emigrants not to plant corn in the
immediate vicinity of their dwellings, as its rich and massive foliage
prevents the sun from dispelling the deleterious vapors."[11]

These lakes and ponds could be drained at a small expense, and the soil
would be susceptible of cultivation. The early settlements of the
Americans were either on this bottom, or the contiguous bluffs.

Besides the American bottom, there are others that resemble it in its
general character, but not in extent. In Union county, there is an
extensive bottom on the borders of the Mississippi. Above the mouth of
the Illinois, and along the borders of the counties of Calhoun, Pike,
and Adams, there are a series of bottoms, with much good and elevated
land; but the inundated