ITS GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOGRAPHY, History, Geology, and Mineralogy: TOGETHER WITH BRIEF SKETCHES OF ITS ANTIQUITIES, NATURAL BY I. A. LAPHAM. SECOND EDITION, GREATLY IMPROVED. MILWAUKEE: I. A. HOPKINS, 146 U. S. BLOCK. NEW YORK:-PAINE & BURGESS, AND SAXTON & MILES. 1846. Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by INCREASE A. LAPHAM, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court, in the Third Judicial District of the Territory of Wisconsin. THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. S. W. BENEDICT, Ster. & Print., 16 Spruce St., New York. Checked PREFACE. A NEW edition of this work being called for, the Author has revised it, adding such important or useful information as he has been able to collect since the publication of the first edition. The work was originally given to the public with the hope, not only of furnishing the thousands of new comers, who are annually flocking to our Territory, and to others, in a cheap and convenient form, a large amount of useful information, which it would be difficult for them to obtain from any other source; but also to preserve for the future historian many interesting facts which might otherwise soon be forgotten and lost. The Author is fully sensible of its defects and omissions, but hopes that due allowance will be made, when it is considered that this is the first attempt of the kind relative to a country more than twice the extent of the great state of New York, which has been made public. Many parts of the country are but thinly peopled, and little communication exists between them and other settlements, so that it is difficult to ascertain what are their extent, population, improvements, &c. New settlements are commenced almost every day, and soon grow into important places without any notice being taken of them by the public. Towns and villages spring up so rapidly that one has to " keep a sharp look out" to be informed even of their names and location, to say nothing about their population, trade, buildings, &c. The building of a town has in a great degree ceased to be a matter of much interest-as much so as an earthquake formerly did in some parts of Missouri, where a traveller having stopped at a log cabin was much concerned to hear the dishes begin to rattle on the shelves, and make a disagreeable kind of music, at which the chairs and other furniture set up an unnatural and very alarming kind of dance! The good lady of the house attempted |