buildings, being a larger number than had been built in any single year since 1856.

The assessed value of property in 1866, real and personal, was $1,106,208,921, an increase over 1865 of more than $36,000,000. Of that increase more than $33,500,000 was in chattel property. The amount of taxable property has largely increased since 1860; and although the State sent to the field during the late civil war an aggregate of more than a third of a million of men, adding to the public debt and increasing the taxes, yet the State nevertheless has continued not only to pay the interest but even to reduce the principal, the finances being accordingly in a most flourishing condition.

INDIANA, adjoining Ohio on the west, is in greatest length from north to south about 275 miles, and from east to west about 135, embracing an area of 33,809 square miles, or 21,637,760 acres.

It was organized as a part of the northwest territory by the ordinance of 1787. The subsequent division of that territory left Indiana with its present limits, and in 1816 it was admitted into the Union.

Like the whole northwest territory it was originally claimed by the French, but was ceded to England by treaty of 1763 between Great Britain, France and Spain, and in 1783, by the treaty of peace, became a part of the United States. In 1702 a party of French Canadians descended the Wabash and established a settlement at Vincennes, on the cast bank of that river, and were subsequently confirmed in their possessions.

The public lands in Indiana have nearly all been disposed of by the general government, the quantity remaining being only about two thousand acres.

The State has numerous streams, furnishing excellent water power for mills and other manufacturing establishments. The Wabash river, forming part of the western boundary, and its principal tributary, the White river, have their sources in and near the western borders of Ohio, and with their numerous tributaries flow through nearly every county in the State.

Indiana has no mountains, but hills, rising in height from one to three hundred feet, skirt the Ohio and other rivers in the southern part, but much the greater portion of the surface is level or gently rolling. The river bottoms are deep alluvion, and the soils of all portions of the State, excepting the tops of the highest hills, are exceedingly fertile.

The valley of the Ohio river, including that of the Whitewater in the southeast, contains 5,500 square miles, and is a limestone region, consisting partly of broken hills. About two-thirds of this region is good farming land, the greater part of the residue valuable for grazing. White River valley, extending from the Wabash in the southwest to the Ohio line in the northeast, embraces an area of about 9,000 square miles, or 5,760,000 acres, the surface of which is almost uniformly level. This magnificent valley covers more than one-fourth part of the whole State; the soil is deep vegetable mould, destitute of rock or stone, and of the richest quality. Large prairies occupy the western part of the valley, while the remaining portion was covered with heavy forest, much of which has been removed and the land converted into cultivated farms. The numerous streams flowing through every part of this valley furnish an abundant supply of water for the purposes of farming or raising stock, or as power for mills or manufacturing establishments.

The Wabash valley is still more extensive, covering 12,000 square miles, or 7,680,000 acres. It extends from the Ohio river northward along the western border of the State for 150 miles; thence inclining northeast, it reaches the boundary of Ohio, north of the White River valley. It has large prairies in the west, heavy forests in the east, and abundant water power in the centre. With the exception of some of the highest bluffs in the lower part of these valleys, every acre of their surface is susceptible of cultivation. The Wabash valley

within this State alone is 600 square miles larger than the kingdom of Belgium, and contains a less quantity of inferior land.

The valley of the Maumee contains 2,000 square miles in the northeast part of the State, of the same general character as the eastern portion of the Wabash and White River valleys. The bottom lands of the Kankakee, in the northwest, are low and flat, forming in some places extensive swamps. These, however, are susceptible of drainage, and when the demand for land becomes sufficient to justify the expense, will be reclaimed and their fertile soils converted to productive uses.

Immediately bordering Lake Michigan extensive sand-hills occur, behind which is a region covered with pine.

One of the finest agricultural sections is found in the northern tier of counties, in the valleys of the St. Joseph and the Elkhart.

Unimproved lands of excellent quality may be purchased from private holders in the less settled portions of the State at very reasonable prices; but in Indiana, as in all the States east of the Mississippi, the price of real estate is annually increasing.

The valley of the Ohio was originally heavily timbered, but most of it has been felled to supply fuel to the boats on the river, and for shipment as lumber. In the central, eastern, and northern parts many heavily-timbered forests of walnut, poplar, beech, buckeye, oak, maple, ash, elm, sycamore, dogwood, hickory, and basswood still exist. Considerable quantities of walnut lumber are transported by rail to New York. The great demand for fuel along the railroads traversing every part of the State is working a rapid decrease of the forest. Prudence would seem to require that some of the best forest lands, when denuded of their larger trees, should be surrendered to the younger growths, and suffered to renew the forest. Were such lands protected from fires and other destructive causes, the young timber would become large enough for all useful purposes in a single generation.

The climate is similar to that of Ohio. The prevailing winds of winter produce severe spells of cold, seldom, however, of long duration. The summers are warm but salubrious.

Indiana holds a high rank as an agricultural State. In 1850, when the population was less than a million, the estimated value of real and personal property was $202,650,264, which in 1860 had increased to $528,835,371, or nearly 161 per cent. in ten years.

In 1850 the cash value of farms in the State was appraised at $136,385,173, and in 1860 at $344,902,776, an increase of more than 200 per cent.

In 1865 and 1866 the value of real and personal property, according to the appraisement of the board of equalization, amounted as follows:

Value of lands and improvements, including town lots, in 1865, $373,391,061; in 1866, $389,793,346, being an increase of $16,402,285; value of real and personal property in 1865, $570,458,400, which in 1866 had increased to $584,607,829.

In 1860 Indiana ranked as the third State in the relative amount of wheat

produced, and fourth as to corn. In 1865 the State surpassed all others except Illinois in the production of corn, and ranked fifth in the production of wheat. The produce of the fields, in grains, potatoes, tobacco and hay, amounted to $80,748,014.

The value of live stock in 1860 was $50,116,964; in 1866 $88,657,071. Owing to the fertility of soil and the geniality of climate, this State must ever hold a prominent position as an agricultural region. Wheat, rye, Indian corn, oats, barley, buckwheat, Irish and sweet potatoes, sorghum, grass, flax, hemp, hops, and tobacco succeed well and are extensively cultivated. The fruits and vegetables common to the latitude of the State find here as favorable conditions to their growth as in any of the States east of the Rocky mountains.

In 1860 the products of the orchards amounted to $1,258,942 in value, and

the market products to $546,053. Large quantities of maple and sorghum sugar and molasses, beeswax and honey, are annually manufactured. Some wine is made along the Ohio river, where considerable attention is bestowed upon the culture of the grape. In 1866 there were in the State 2,783,367 sheep, worth $9,393,864.

The great coal-field of Illinois extends into Indiana, covering in the western part an estimated area equal to 7,700 square miles, or more than one-fifth part of the whole surface. On White river the seams are upwards of six feet thick. In other localities seams of eight feet in thickness are found. Some of the coal measures, it is estimated, are capable of yielding 50,000,000 bushels to the square mile. At Cannelton, on the Ohio, a bed of cannel coal is found from three to five feet in thickness, at an elevation of seventy feet above the river. It is represented as an excellent coal for steamboat purposes, and large quantities of it are mined to supply the boats on the Ohio. The coal fields of Indiana will possess greater value when the supply of wood for fuel becomes less abundant and more expensive.

Besides coal, iron, limestone, marble, freestone, gypsum, and grindstones, slate of several varieties, clays useful in the arts, and some copper are found in the State.

In 1860 $300,000 were invested in forges and furnaces for working iron. About $105,000 worth of bar and other rolled iron was produced. Upwards of $400,000 worth of steam engines and machinery was made, and about $200,000 worth of iron castings. From the abundant water power, the cheapness of fuel, and the existence of excellent iron ore, there is no doubt this branch of industry is destined to a great expansion. Salt springs are found on the east border of the coal formation.

The whole number of manufacturing establishments in the State in 1860 was 5,120, employing 21,300 hands, and consuming raw material, inclusive of fuel, valued at $27,360,000, with a capital invested of $18,875,000, and producing an annual product of $43,250,000.

In the construction of an extensive railroad system, Indiana is among the foremost of the great States of the West. In the commencement of this enterprise, the State lent credit with such liberality as subsequently resulted in financial embarrassment, from which, happily, the skilful management of great resources is in recent years rapidly extricating Indiana, indicating at no distant day a liquidation of all obligations.

Lines of railroad cross the State from the Ohio river to the great lakes, and from the Ohio to the Illinois boundary, tapping the river at different points within the State, crossing the east and west boundaries, and connecting every important place with the large cities of the eastern, middle, and western States.

The geographical position of Indiana, like that of Ohio and Illinois, is such that the whole land commerce between the manufacturing States of the East and the country west of the Mississippi must pass over its territory. The amount of traffic over the lines of its railroads is already immense, and is annually witnessing an extraordinary increase.

In 1800 Indiana had a population of 4,875; in 1850, 988,393; in 1860 it was 1,350,428, and 1,700,000 in 1866. With a continuance of present prosperity the census of 1870 will find a population of 2,000,000 within the State limits.

Indiana has eight cities having each a population of 10,000 and over, viz.: Indianapolis, the capital, of 35,000; New Albany, on the Ohio river, of 19,000; Evansville, on the Ohio, of 17,000; Fort Wayne, in the northeast part of the State, of 13,000; Lafayette, Terre Haute, Madison, and Richmond, with populations of 10,000 and upwards.

The population of the towns has increased in a still greater ratio than the rural districts, believed to equal 50 per cent. since 1860 at all important railroad centres or shipping points on the Ohio.

The school fund of Indiana in 1866 was estimated at $7,611,337, and the revenue for school purposes derived from this and other sources amounted to $1,330,863.

The whole number of children in the State in 1866 attending primary schools was 390,714; high schools 12,098; number of teachers employed 9,473; number of pupils attending private schools 49,332; number of volumes in town libraries 265,338. Colleges and academies are numerous throughout the State and in flourishing condition.

ILLINOIS has Wisconsin on the north; on the east Indiana and Lake Michigan; on the south the Ohio river, and on the west the Mississippi, its greatest length from north to south being 388 miles, and extreme width from east to west 212, with an area of 55,410 square miles, or 35,462,400 acres. It is five times as large as Belgium and more than half the size of Prussia prior to 1866. The first settlers were French Canadians, who founded as early as 1682, in the western part, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and other towns.

In 1818 it was admitted as a State in the Union with its present boundaries. With the exception, perhaps, of a few isolated parcels, the proprietary interest of the United States in the soil of Illinois has been disposed of for cash, homesteads, military services, railroads, swamps, internal improvements, schools, universities, salines, public buildings, and other purposes. The surface is level. or gently undulating prairie, of an elevation averaging 550 feet above the level of the Gulf of Mexico. A very small proportion in the northwest is hilly, with occasional bluffs on the Mississippi, the Illinois and some of the other rivers, but by far the greater proportion is rolling plain. The Illinois river, the largest in the State, formed fifty miles southwest of Lake Michigan by the junction of the Kankakee and the Des Plaines, flows southwest, emptying into the Mississippi twenty miles above the mouth of the Missouri. Its length by its sinuosities is 500 miles, it being navigable half the distance. It has numerous tributaries, draining one of the finest and best improved portions of the State, while other important streams emptying into the Mississippi are Rock river in the northwest, the Kaskaskia in the central, and Big Muddy in the southern part, joining the Mississippi thirty miles south of the Kaskaskia.

Of the rivers falling into the Ohio the most important within the limits of Illinois are the Wabash, forming the boundary between Illinois and Indiana for more than a hundred miles, with its tributaries on the Illinois side-the Vermillion, the Embarras, and Little Wabash. The Saline falls into the Ohio a short distance below the Wabash, and the Cash near the junction of the Ohio with the Mississippi.

The Wabash is navigable for light draught boats for 300 miles; Rock river, during high water, more than 200 miles. As the Ohio and Mississippi wash the southern and western shores of this State, the Wabash a part of the eastern boundary, the natural advantages of Illinois in navigable streams are, perhaps, unsurpassed by any State in the Union, and its position on Lake Michigan, securing it an outlet by way of the lakes and the St. Lawrence river to the Atlantic, still further increases its facilities for trade, while its geographical situation, between the commercial cities of the Atlantic States on one side and the enterprising millions beyond the Mississippi on the other, constitutes it a thoroughfare for the immense traffic between the East and West, making its network of railroads and canals the scenes of ceaseless industry, pointing to a future of increasing prosperity, wealth, and power. No State has a greater proportion of level or moderately undulating land, and none a smaller of hilly or broken, there being scarcely an acre not tillable. The soil is deep and fertile without rock or stone to impede the labors of the husbandman.

Portions of the American bottom on the Mississippi have been cultivated for more than a hundred years, without showing any signs of exhaustion. A spon

taneous growth of timber, varieties indigenous to the climate and soil, usually takes place by simply turning over the prairie sod or preventing fires, but many prefer planting the faster-growing trees, such as cottonwood and locust, in order to realize in the shortest period the advantages of timber.

The southern part is more abundantly supplied with trees than the northern and central, but belts of timber are found in all sections, sometimes skirting the banks of the streams or growing in clumps or groves upon the uplands, with wide intervals of prairie. The most common are the black and white walnut, the different varieties of the oak, the ash, hackberry, hickory, linden or basswood, sycamore, locust, sugar-maple, buckeye, pecan, cottonwood, persimmon, and in the southern white and yellow poplar, beech, yellow pine, and cedar. Of fruit trees, the apple, peach, pear, cherry, plum, and quince are common, and succeed well. Grapes, currants, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, and blackberries are largely cultivated and yield extensive crops.

As Illinois extends through more than five degrees of latitude, a considerable difference exists between its northern and southern extremities in respect to climate. In the northern part the winters are sometimes severe, but less so than on the Atlantic in the same parallel. The summers are warm, yet agreeably modified by continual breezes.

The State, every portion of which is healthy, occupies a leading agricultural position, there being few regions of like area possessing in an equal degree elements of the highest agricultural capacity, with so many circumstances favorable to their development.

In 1850 Illinois had 76,208 farms, valued at $96,133,290; in 1860, 144,338, valued at $408,944,033. The quantity of land in farms increased about 77 per cent. during the decade, the improved land 165 per cent., the cash value of farms about 325, and the value of farming implements and machinery nearly 200 per cent.

The value of live stock in 1850 was $24,209,258; in 1860, $72,501,225; and in 1865, according to the State returns, it had advanced to $123,770,554, showing an increase during the ten years following 1850 of 200 per cent., or 20 per cent. per annum, and 70 per cent. for the five years following 1860, or 14 per cent. per annum.

New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio are the only States making larger quantities of butter; and, in the value of slaughtered animals, Illinois is exceeded only by New York.

In 1860 Illinois produced 23,837,023 bushels of wheat, and 115,174,777 bushels of Indian corn, being 14 bushels of wheat and 67 bushels of Indian corn to every man, woman, and child..

The State surpassed all others in wheat and corn products, there having been cultivated upon its soil nearly one-seventh of the entire wheat and corn crop of the United States, In 1865, 177,095,852 bushels of Indian corn were produced, and 25,266,745 bushels of wheat. The entire grain crop in 1865, including Indian corn, wheat, rye, oats, barley, and buckwheat, amounted to 232,620,173 bushels. The crop of potatoes was 5,864,408 bushels, tobacco, 18,867,722 pounds, and hay, 2,600,000 tons, the whole amounting in value to $116,274,322. Besides this there were produced in 1865, 5,000,000 pounds of cotton, a branch of industry just beginning to receive attention, yet already pronounced one of the most profitable crops in the southern part of the State; also large quantities of grass seeds, maple and sorghum sugar and molasses, flax, flaxseed, hemp, hops, silk cocoons, beeswax, honey, wine, butter and cheese, peas, and beans. The wool clip in 1865 was over 6,000,000 pounds; orchard products of the value of $2,000,000, and market, $500,000.

The year 1865 was unfavorable for wheat in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, the yield in each being less than in either 1862, 1863, or 1864. Illinois then produced 32,213,500 bushels.