The prairies are sometimes level, sometimes gently undulating, and sometimes hilly; but no where mountainous. The soil is three or four feet deep; then you come to a bed of clay two or three feet in depth, and then gravel. The soil is a rich, black loam; and when wet, it sticks to the feet like clay. Manure has no beneficial effect upon it; but where it has been cultivated, it produces an abundant crop, the first year, not quite as good as succeeding years; and it seems to be quite inexhaustible. The prairies are covered with a luxuriant growth of native grass, which, when it gets its full growth is generally about as high as a man's shoulders.--They are destitute of trees, shrubs, or stones; and although the surface may be undulating, yet it is so smooth, that they can be mown as well as the smoothest old field in New-England. In the spring of the year, a great variety of beautiful flowers shoot up among the grass; so that the face of nature exhibits the appearance of an extended flower garden. The prairie grass is unlike any kind I have seen at the north; but it affords excellent fodder for horses, neat cattle and sheep. A finer grazing country I had never seen. The grass appears to have more nourishment in it, than at the north. I saw beef cattle, fatted on the prairie grass alone, and I challenge Brighton to produce fatter beef, or finer flavored. Towards the lake, the land is gently undulating; farther west, on Fox and Rock rivers, it is rolling; and as you approach Galena on the Mississippi, it becomes more hilly and broken. All this country seems to lack, is timber and water. There are rivers enough, but not many small streams and springs. But both of these defects can in a good measure be remedied. Good water can be obtained almost any where by digging wells from twenty to thirty feet in depth; and fuel must be supplied by the coal, which is found generally in abundance throughout the State. Bricks can be used for building; and hedge rows for fences. The coal is excellent for the grate. It burns free, and emits such a brilliant light, that any other in a room is hardly necessary. It is now used in many places, in preference to wood, although that is now plenty. Blacksmiths use it for the forge; and at one shop, the man told me he could dig and haul enough in half a day to last him a month.