tween, afford a constantly varying scene and several manufactories. The popu of rock, meadow, and midland. Abovelation is about 800. Here is the termiand below the cave are high precipices nation of the national road. Stageof limestone, principally covered with coaches go daily to St. Louis and Cape cedars. The scenery still retains much Girardeau. of the wild aspect it wore before civilization had intruded on it, and when nothing broke the silence of the traveller's voyage except the dip of his oars, the scream of the eagle, or the whoop of the hostile savage. The entrance to the cave is nearly semicircular, and is on a level with the river when the latter is high. The passage is about twenty feet in altitude, and, a few yards from the mouth, leads into a spacious apartment about twenty feet in height, one hundred and twenty feet in length, and of a breadth nearly equal. In the roof is seen an opening, which, if report speaks true, leads into an upper room, remarkable for its natural ornaments. The passage leading to it may be compared to a chimney; but few persons have enough of the spirit of adventure to attempt an entrance. The natural fretwork on the walls is said to give them the appearance of Gothic ornaments. At one end of the cave is a deep hole, which has never been explored or fathomed to its termination. Its direction is downward, and the undertaking of a descent would be hazardous. Stones thrown in are heard to strike the rocks far below, after the lapse of several seconds. About the close of the last century this cave was the habitation of a band of robbers, whose leader, named Mason, headed them in attacks upon boats and arks, as they drifted down the Ohio. In some cases the crews were not only robbed and ill treated, but even murdered. The criminals and their retreat becoming known, however, the gang were attacked in the year 1797, and broken up, so that peaceful navigators have not since been interrupted in that neighborhood. VANDALIA, on the right bank of Kaskaskia river, was formerly the capital of the state. The streets are regular, and the place has a handsome appearance. It contains two churches, a land-office, PEORIA, on the right bank of the Illinois river, at the outlet of Peoria lake, is seventy miles from Springfield. The first bank of the river is from six to twelve feet above high-water mark, and is a quarter of a mile wide. Beyond it rises the second bank, which is five or six feet higher; and this extends to the bluffs, which are from sixty to one hundred feet high. Here are six churches, several manufactories, a courthouse, and about 2,500 inhabitants. GALENA.—This town, so intimately connected with the mining and trade in lead, is situated on the La Fevre, or Bean river, six miles from its mouth, and one hundred and fifty-eight miles from Chicago. Steamboats of the largest size go up to the town at all seasons, and the amount of exports is annually very large, especially in the staple article, lead. It contains five churches, and a population of about 8,000. The first settlement was made in the year 1826. Stage-coaches go daily to Chicago, and three times a week to several other places. In 1846 the arrivals of steamboats were three hundred and thirty-three, amounting to fifty-eight thousand, five hundred and seventy-five tons. The exports, in 1850, were as follows: Lead, 672,620 pigs, worth $2,225,000; copper, $22,000; lumber, $100,000; hides, $14,800; wheat, 150,000 bushels. ROCK ISLAND CITY is a small town on the Mississippi river, a little above the mouth of Rock river. The population is now about 2,000. BELLEVILLE, fourteen miles from St. Louis, is the seat of justice for St. Clair county, and contains three large flourmills, and various other manufactories. One half of the population of the town and county are industrious Germans. The number of inhabitants was 1,207 in 1840, and is now about 2,800. Rock Fort.-This is a prominent bluff on the left bank of Illinois river, and rendered doubly interesting by an In dian tradition. It is about two hundred and fifty feet high, with steep, precipitous sides, wholly inaccessible in all parts except one, and presenting a peculiar striped appearance, caused by a number of strata of sandstone, of different shades, running in a horizontal direction. With the wide prairie on one side, and the river, flowing through it, on another, the perpendicular sides of this remarkable eminence rise like an immense watchtower, or rather castlea work of gigantic hands; while, at the places where the neighboring range of highland is connected with it by a narrow ridge, a little path conducts the stranger to the summit, with great toil and difficulty. There he finds a level spot, about three fourths of an acre in extent, overgrown with young trees, many of which stand upon an ancient ditch and a mound, which appears to have once served as a breast work round the circuit of this natural fort. In the soil are remains of mussel-shells, pottery, and stones, that appear to have been heated; and the views from the edge of the precipice are extensive and delightful. Strong and almost inaccessible, this natural battlement has been still further fortified by the Indians, and many years ago was the scene of a desperate conflict between the Pottawatomies and a band of the Illinois Indians. The latter fled to this place for refuge from the fury of their enemies. The post could not be carried by assault, and tradition says that the besiegers finally succeeded, after many repulses, by cutting off the supply of water; to procure which, the besieged let down vessels, attached to ropes of bark, from a part of the precipice which overhangs the river; but their enemies succeeded in cutting off these ropes as often as they were let down. The consequence was a surrender, which was followed by a total extirpation of the band. The channel of the Mississippi is constantly shifting, and the only safe chart is the lead. The pilots, most of them, know every nook and corner of the river, and can judge by the surface current when the channel has shifted. The cause of this shifting is the strong current, nearly four miles an hour, which wears away a point of land here and there, washing the earth and trees out into the old channel and creating a new one. The mosquitoes at the "woodup" stations come on to the steamer in swarms, and nothing but a strong breeze will drive them off. But little land has been cleared on the banks of the Mississippi. With the exception of Louisiana, which is pretty generally cultivated, and a few cities and towns scattered like guide-boards to civilization, through the wilderness, there is nothing but forest for over twelve hundred miles. Yet the soil looks rich, and is so, and only needs the axe of the pioneer to make the whole country a garden. The river navigation of the great west is the most wonderful on the globe, and, since the application of steam-power to the propulsion of vessels, possesses the essential qualities of open navigation. Speed, distance, cheapness, magnitude of cargoes, are all there, and without the perils of the sea from storms and enemies. The steamboat is the ship of the river, and finds in the Mississippi and its tributaries the amplest theatre for the diffusion of its use, and the display of its power. Wonderful river, connected with seas by the head and by the mouth-stretching its arms toward the Atlantic and the Pacific-lying in a valley, which is a valley from the gulf of Mexico to Hudson's bay-drawing its first waters, not from rugged mountains, but from the plateau of the lakes in the centre of the continent, and in communication with the sources of the St. Lawrence and the streams which take their course north to Hudson's bay-draining the largest extent of the richest land-collecting the products of every clime, even the frigid, to bear the whole to a genial market in the sunny south, and there to meet the products of the entire world. Such is the Mississippi! And who can calculate the ag gregate of its advantages, and the magnitude of its future commercial results! Many years ago, the late Governor Clark and others undertook to calculate the extent of the boatable water in the valley of the Mississippi, and made it about fifty thousand miles, of which thirty thousand were computed to unite above St. Louis, and twenty thousand below. Of course they counted all the infant streams on which a flat, a keel, or a batteau, could be floated-and justly, for every tributary, of the humblest boatable character, helps to swell not only the volume of the central waters, but of the commerce upon them. Of this immense extent of river navigation, all combined into one system of waters, St. Louis is the centre, and the entrepot of its trade, presenting even now, in its infancy, an astonishing and almost incredible amount of commerce, destined to increase annually. It is considered an inland town. Counting by time and money, the only true commercial measure of distances, and St. Louis is nearer to the sea than New Orleans was before the steam-towboat abridged the distance between that city and the mouth of the Mississippi. St. Louis is a seaport as well as an inland city, and is a port of delivery by law, and has collected fifty thousand dollars of duties on foreign imports during the current year; and with a liberal custom would become a great entrepot of foreign as well as of domestic commerce. With the attributes and characteristics of a seaport, she is entitled to the benefit of one, as fully and as clearly as New York or New Orleans. At a distance of 1,400 miles from the gulf of Mexico, is a new starting point for a further inland navigation to the north, of 1,000 miles by the Mississippi; to the west, of 2,000 by the Missouri; to the northeast, 1,000 by the Wisconsin, and 400 by the Illinois; and to the east, 1,200 by the Ohio. Through all of these and their countless tributaries, is the mighty west continually pouring out its teeming products to the seaboard. Through the Mississippi alone, only one of the outlets of this valley, there will probably be transported to a market more than $100,000,000 in the surplus agricultural products of last season, and that not an abundaut one. If such are the results of a single half century's enterprise, by the surplus progeny of a people numbering but little more than 3,000,000 at its commencement, what must be the results of future centuries of similar enterprise, with the accumulating ratio of our skill and population? In going up the Mississippi from the mouth of the Missouri, we take a final leave of the muddy waters that mar the beauty of the stream, the whole distance to the gulf. The Illinois is a miniature Mississippi, especially at its lower extremity; while higher up, its numerous bluffs, now approaching and now receding from the banks, remind one of the bolder scenery between its mouth and the Ohio. The banks, which are generally from six to twelve feet above low water, are frequently overflowed through a great part of their course. They descend from the edge of the river to lowland, or swamps, in their rear, evidently marking this valley as a delta formation. The conformation of the remote or primitive banks of this river, and those of the Aux-Plaines, one of its principal tributaries, which flows within eight miles of Lake Michigan, indicate conclusively that they formerly discharged a vastly larger body of water than they now contain. tured, and with a good deal of probability, that they were once the outlet of one or more of the large northern lakes, and possibly those of Michigan, Huron, and Superior. If this were the case, we can conceive of no adequate cause short of the upheaval of the western shore of Lake Michigan, which should have sent the waters that formerly met the Atlantic at Cape Sable, in latitude twentyfive degrees, through the gulf of St. Lawrence, that communicates with the ocean at its northern outlet in fifty-two degrees. It is conjec Most of the banks of the Illinois are densely wooded; after ascending about one hundred miles above its mouth, however, the prairies frequently come down to the edge of the water. Peoria is beautifully situated on one of these, two hundred miles from the outlet of the river, whose rolling bank, ascending inland, rises twenty feet above the water, which here expands to a tiny lake. The town of Henry, a few miles above and on the same western bank, is similarly the Wisconsin, and then followed its situated, but on a higher bank, and the prairie stretches off sixty miles toward the Mississippi. There are numerous small thriving towns along the stream, which are already the dépôts for immense quantities of corn, wheat, flour, pork, beef, &c. Some fifteen or twenty small steamboats are employed with the traffic and passengers on this river, besides scows and flatboats that are used in freighting the produce. Two of the latter, each capable of carrying one thousand barrels of flour, were loading at Hennepin, some three hundred miles above St. Louis. There are numerous steam saw and flouring mills on the banks, by which lumber and grain are largely manufactured, the latter only to any extent for exportation. From Peru to Chicago, one hundred miles, the course is over fertile and undulating prairies, most of which, though unoccupied a dozen years ago, are now under cultivation and thickly studded with tasteful villages. Mount Joliet.-Mr. Schoolcraft, in his travels in the central portions of the Mississippi valley, gives us an account of his visit to this place. It is a hill or mound, a few miles from Fox river, and near Lisbon, on an immense prairie. It is about 1,300 feet long, 225 broad, and 60 high; oblong at the base; and covers 500,000 square feet. It is far from any other elevation, and is conspicuous from a great distance on every side, commanding views in all directions which are bounded only by the horizon. We give an extract from Mr. S. : "We entered the strip of woods which form a margin to the Aux Sables, one of the tributary streams of the Illinois, during the most intense heat of the day, and enjoyed its refreshing shade for a few moments. Ten miles beyond this pellucid little river, we halted, and dismounted in the plains, and made a short excursion on foot to Mount Joliet. This monumental elevation takes its name from Sieur Joliet, who was sent by M. Talon, the intendant of New France, to accompany Father Marquette, in his search of the Mississippi, in the year 1673. They entered this stream through current. It is not certain how far they descended, but it is evident they passed the junction of the Missouri, and some assert that they went to the mouth of the Arkansas. On their return to Canada, they followed up the Illinois, and have left us the first notice of this mound, which they ascended. This alluvial struc "Any prominent swell in the surface of the soil would appear interesting and remarkable in so flat a country, but this would be considered a very striking object of curiosity in a region of inequalities. It is, strictly speaking, neither a mountain nor a hill, but rather a mound, and the first impression made by its regular and well-preserved outlines is that of a work of art. ture is seated on the plains, about six hundred yards west of the present channel of the river Des Plaines, but immediately upon what appears to have been the former bank of this river. Its figure, as seen at a distance, is that of a cone truncated by a plane parallel to the base, but we find, on approaching, its base describes an ellipsis. Its height we computed to be sixty feet. Its length is about four hundred and fifty yards, and its width seventy-five yards. These measurements have relation only to the top. Its base is of course much larger. The sides have a gradual and regular slope, but the acclivity is so great that we found the ascent laborious. There are a few shrubby oak-trees on the western side; but every other part, like the plain in which it stands, is covered with grass. The materials of this extraordinary mound are, to all appearance, wholly alluvial, and not to be distinguished from those of the contiguous country from which, it would appear, they have been scooped out. It is firmly seated on a horizontal stratum of secondary limestone. The view from this eminence is charming and diversified. The forests are sufficiently near to serve as a relief to the prairies. Clumps of oaks are scattered over the country. The lake Joliet, fifteen miles long and about a quarter of a mile wide, lies in front. There is not perhaps a more noble and picturesque spot for a private |