[Original Cover, with Map] Found at Last: the Veritable Garden of Eden Or a place that answers the Bible description of the notable spot better than anything yet discovered By Rev. D. O. Van Slyke Independent Printing House, Galesville, Wisconsin 1886 Copyrighted 1886, by C. S. Van Slyke Proprietor, Galesville, Wis. All rights reserved. [Preparer’s Note: Typographical errors from the original have been retained, as well as quirks of punctuation (such as the extensive use of asterisks)] PREFACE. On the principle of “first know you are right, then go ahead,” I have been very slow in making public the results of my discovery. But having become thoroughly satisfied that I have a reasonable thing of it, have ventured to publish it. It has appeared in brief articles in the Galesville INDEPENDENT, in order to invite general inspection, and criticism. When God made man to dwell on the face of the earth, He, evidently, must place him somewhere. In giving the antldiluvians a description of the creation, and first location of man, how mankind corrupted themselves, and how God destroyed them with a flood, he simply stated the principal facts, and gave a description of the location—and it not being on that continent, he could not point it out to them—and as the country in which Noah then resided, was all new to him, and his family, no one knew where it was; nor was any one able then, or since, to find it on that continent; thus, the location, though admitted to be somewhere on earth, has been kept a profound mystery to the present time, and consequently the innocent cause of no little speculation. But by degrees it has been opening to the minds of some, that the first habitation of man must have been somewhere on the American Continent; and the finger of time has been plainly pointing to what is known as the “North West,” as the place. But of this last fact I was ignorant when I made the discovery of the garden, and commenced developing the facts about it. The discovery, resulted from my familiarity with, or thorough knowledge of the Bible, and standing on the hanging garden and looking over the plat, and admirirg its most wonderful scenery, and counting the rivers, I became sensibly impressed by a suggestion, This is the garden of Eden: at which suggestion I smiled, as the plat, to me then, was altogether too large. Of course I had never given it thought, nor measured it up in my own mind to what should, or might be its proper dimentions. However so strong were my impressions, that I, as a matter of pleasantry, used, occasionally to say to my friends, This is the garden of Eden.