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HISTORY OF WISKONSAN.
vated at present. This county was first established
by the legislature of Michigan, October the 16th 1818,
and then comprehended all the county west of a line
drawn north and south through the middle of the Wis-
konsan Portage. But a small portion of this county
    . AI~u -UIII-     -,jkrOl 01ars eanye  o
I.j vecuvlvu' someJ SMILVIS ol acres remain yet to De
entered, or purchased at the government prices.
  Its population in June 1842, was one thousand four
hundred and forty nine souls.
                 CHAPTER IX.
  To the reflecting observer, the autumnal wood-
laUs VI tile western prairie, particularly at Prairie du
Chien, are parterres in giant form, the flowers and
colors of which are arranged in the happiest manner
for softened beauty and delightful effect. And when
the myriads of tinted leaves have fallen to the earth;
when the squirrel chitters from the leafless branches
or rustles among them for the ripened but still clinging
brown nuts; the rural wanderer is tempted to throw
himself on the beds of leaves, sccumulated by the
wind. and while ha InnV.r th-.11-h 4h- .-1,, 4,i-.i   at-
mosphere. half imagines that he is gazing on an ocean
of flowers.
  But the claims of a western autumn upon the admi-
ration of the traveller, are very far from depending
entirely on the rainbow colored foliage of the wood-
land parks, unrivalled in beauty, though they certainly
are; to these must be added the splendors of an an-
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