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-651- 1848

and yet how few of us have climbed either of these mountains. The
scenery along the Mississippi river in our territory is not sur-
passed by that along the famed Hudson; and yet how few of us have
laid our eyes on these beauties. We need not go as far as the Mis-
sissippi to get into the wild and romantic scenery. Along the upper
Wisconsin and from that to the Mississippi the country is much
broken by hills and valleys; the hills assuming many fantastic
shapes, imitative of animated nature; at least, with a little
assistance of the imagination, they are so considered. The trav-
eler sees at a distance an immense image of buffalo, perhaps,
reposing upon the ground; at an another point of view it resembles
some other animals; and upon a nearer approach all these forms
appear to vanish, and only a rugged steep hill, of great height
stands before him.

The place called the Dells on the Wisconsin river, a
few miles above the Portage at Fort Winnebago, is described as a
remarkable place which was once evidently a great cataract. If we
could imagine the Falls of Niagara, that have now cut their way
for seven miles through solid rock, to have worked its way back so
far as to drain Lake Erie and thus allow the river to run through
a continuous gorge with a rapid current but without a cataract, we
could form some idea of these Dells. The sides are of solid
rock almost perpendicular, exhibiting the regular strata or layers
and thus affording the geologists, as at Niagara, one of the best
opportunities of studying the structure of the earth. The story
about this gorge being so narrow as enable a person to jump
across it, appears to be without foundation.