This sketch of the Wabash and its wonderful possibilities may not be more aptly closed, than by appending hereto the description of Thomas Hutchins, the first geographer of the United States. It appears in his "Topographical Description," and mention is made of the connection of the Wabash by a portage with the waters of Lake Erie; the value of the fur trade at Ouiatenon and Vincennes, and many other points of vital interest. [Illustration: The Wabash River at Merom Bluff, Sullivan County, Indiana, La Motte Prairie beyond.] "Ouiatenon (Author's note: Just below Lafayette), is a small stockaded fort on the western side of the Wabash, in which about a dozen families reside. The neighboring Indians are the Kickapoos, Musquitons, Pyankeshaws, and a principal part of the Ouiatenons. The whole of these tribes consists, it is supposed, of about one thousand warriors. The fertility of soil, and the diversity of timber in this country, are the same as in the vicinity of Post Vincent. The annual amount of skins and furs obtained at Ouiatenon is about 8,000 pounds. By the river Wabash, the inhabitants of Detroit move to the southern parts of Ohio, and the Illinois country. Their route is by the Miami river (Maumee) to a carrying place (Author's note: Miamitown or Fort Wayne), which, as before stated, is nine miles to the Wabash, when this river is raised with freshies; but at other seasons, the distance is from eighteen to thirty miles, including the portage. The whole of the latter is through a level country. Carts are usually employed in transporting boats and merchandise, from the Miami to the Wabash river." No less wonderful was the valley of the Maumee, directly on the great trade route between the Wabash and the post of Detroit. Croghan, who was a good judge of land, and made careful observations, found the Ottawas and Wyandots here in 1765, the land of great richness, and game very plentiful. It was a region greatly beloved by the Indian tribes, and the scene after the revolution, of many grand councils of the northwestern confederacy. In a letter of General Anthony Wayne, written in 1794, he asserts that: "The margins of these beautiful rivers, the Miamis of the Lake (Maumee), and the Au Glaize (A southern tributary), appear like one continued village for a number of miles, both above and below this place, Grand Glaize, nor have I ever before beheld such immense fields of corn in any part of America, from Canada to Florida."