healthy and fertile region, should have increased and flourished no more than seems to have been the case. Vandalia will continue the seat of government until the year 1840; when, agreeable to the late act of Legislature, it is to be removed to Springfield, where an appropriation of $50,000 has been made for a state-house now in progress. The growth of Vandalia, though tardy, can perhaps be deemed so only in comparison with the more rapid advancement of neighbouring towns; for a few years after it was laid off it was unsurpassed in improvement by any other. We are told that the first legislators who assembled in session at this place sought their way through the neighbouring prairies as the mariner steers over the trackless ocean, by his knowledge of the cardinal points. {229} Judges and lawyers came pouring in from opposite directions, as wandering tribes assemble to council; and many were the tales of adventure and mishap related at their meeting. Some had been lost in the prairies; some had slept in the woods; some had been almost chilled to death, plunging through creeks and rivers. A rich growth of majestic oaks then covered the site of the future metropolis; tangled thickets almost impervious to human foot surrounded it, and all was wilderness on every side. Wonderful accounts of the country to the north; of rich lands, and pure streams, and prairies more beautiful than any yet discovered, soon began to come in by the hunters.[152] But over that country the Indian yet roved, and the adventurous pioneer neither owned the soil he cultivated, nor had the power to retain its possession from the savage. Only eight years after this, and a change, as if by magic, had come over the little village of Vandalia; and not only so, but over the whole state, which was now discovered to be a region more extensive and far more fertile than the "sacred island of Britain." The region previously the frontier formed the heart of the fairest portion of the state, and a dozen new counties were formed within its extent. Mail-routes and post-roads, diverging in all directions from the capital, had been established, and canals and railways had been projected. Eight years more, and the "Northern frontier" is the seat of power and population; and {230} here is removed the seat of government, because the older settlements have not kept pace in advancement.