from 10 deg. 47' to 14 deg. 26' W.
longitude from Washington. The State is 378 miles long from North to
South, and 212 miles broad from East to West. Its area is computed at
55,408 square miles, or 35,459,200 acres, less than two millions of
which are called swamp lands, the remaining thirty-three millions being
tillable land of unsurpassed fertility.

The State of Illinois forms the lower part of that slope which embraces
the greater part of Indiana, and of which Lake Michigan, with its
shores, forms the upper part. At the lowest part of this slope, and of
the State, is the city of Cairo, situated about 350 feet above the
level of the Gulf of Mexico, at the confluence of the Ohio and the
Mississippi; hence, the highest place in Illinois being only 800 feet
above the level of the sea, it will appear that the whole State, though
containing several hilly sections, is a pretty level plain, being, with
the exception of Delaware and Louisiana, the flattest country in the
Union.

The State contains about twenty-five considerable streams, and brooks
and rivulets innumerable. There are no large lakes within its borders,
though it has some sixty miles of Lake Michigan for its boundary on the
east. Small clear lakes and ponds abound, particularly in the northern
portion of the State.

As to the quality of the soil, Illinois is divided as follows:--

First, the alluvial land on the margins of the rivers, and extending
back from half a mile to six or eight miles. This soil is of
extraordinary fertility, and, wherever it is elevated, makes the best
farming land in the State. Where it is low, and exposed to inundations,
it is very unsafe to attempt its cultivation. The most extensive tract
of this kind is the so-called American Bottom, which received this name
when it was the western boundary of the United States. It extends from
the junction of the Kaskaskia and Mississippi, along the latter, to the
mouth of the Missouri, containing about 288,000 acres.

Secondly, the table-land, fifty to a hundred feet higher than the
alluvial; it consists principally of prairies, which, according to their
respectively higher or lower situations, are either dry or marshy.

Thirdly, the hilly sections of the State, which, consisting alternately
of wood and prairie, are not, on the whole, as fertile as either the
alluvial or the table-land.

There are no mountains in Illinois; but in the southern as well as the
northern part, there are a few