ows these bottoms to a great extent. This fine Valley
embraces considerably more than one half of the whole population of the
entire Valley of the West. The western parts of Pennsylvania and
Virginia, the entire states of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, the larger
part of Tennessee, and a smaller part of Illinois, are in the Valley of
the Ohio."

_The Upper Valley of the Mississippi_ possesses a surface far less
diversified than the Valley of the Ohio. The country where its most
northern branches take their rise, is elevated table land, abounding
with marshes and lakes, that are filled with a graniferous vegetable
called wild rice. It is a slim, shrivelled grain of a brownish hue, and
gathered by the Indians in large quantities for food. There are tracts
of arable land covered with elm, linden, pine, hemlock, cherry, maple,
birch and other timber common to a northern climate. From the same
plateau flow the numerous branches of Red river, and other streams that
flow into lake Winnipeck, and thence into Hudson's bay. Here, too, are
found some of the head branches of the waters of St. Lawrence, that
enter the Lake of the Woods, and Superior. In the whole country of which
we are speaking, there is nothing that deserves the name of mountain.
Below the falls of St. Anthony the river bluffs are often abrupt, wild
and romantic, and at their base and along the streams are thousands of
quartz crystals, carnelians and other precious stones.

But a short distance in the rear, you enter upon table land of extensive
prairies, with clumps of trees, and groves along the streams. Further
down, abrupt cliffs and overhanging precipices are frequently seen at
the termination of the river alluvion.

The whole country northwest of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, as
far north as the falls of St. Anthony, exhibits striking marks of a
diluvial formation, by a gradual retiring of the waters. From the summit
level that divides the waters of the lakes from those of the
Mississippi, through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, which is
scarcely a perceptible ridge, to the south point of Illinois at the
junction of the Ohio and Mississippi, appears to have once been a plane
with an inclination equal to 12 or 15 inches per mile. The ravines and
vallies appear to have been gradually scooped out by the abrasion of the
waters.

"The _Lower Mississippi Valley_, has a length of 1,200 miles, from
northwest to southeast, considering the source of