Here it was determined to send the
Canadians with our canoe, round by water to St. Louis, while we hired a
sort of stage-wagon to cross the prairies. I visited the noted locality
of fluor spar in Pope County, Illinois, and crossing the mountainous
tract called the Knobs, rejoined the party at the Saline. Here I found
my old friend Enmenger, of Kemp and Keen memory, to be the innkeeper. On
reaching St. Louis, General Cass rode over the country to see the
Missouri, while I, in a sulky, revisited the mines in Washington, and
brought back a supply of its rich minerals. We proceeded in our canoe up
the River Illinois to the rapids, at what is called Fort Rock, or
Starved Rock, and from thence, finding the water low, rode on horseback
to Chicago, horses having been sent, for this purpose, from Chicago to
meet us. There was not a house from Peoria to John Craft's, four miles
from Chicago. I searched for, and found, the fossil tree, reported to
lie in the rocks in the bed of the river _Des Plaines_. The sight of
Lake Michigan, on nearing Chicago, was like the ocean.
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