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some lives were lost and much property. Three feet below the surface any where in Chicago, water is found - below the water is a solid bed of clay. This place Racine has advantages of situation over most others on the lake but there is some perplexity now about school lands. It seems, land was given by Virginia for school funds, a mile square for each towship of six miles square, - the middle section, as it lies, whether in a swamp or in a lake - one third here is in the lake, and the whole a Southport 10 miles from here,) Now the wise Legislation of the State has take this fund into their own hand so apportions out to the different towns; - the school section here is the finest and best part of the city, has been taken up in lots by people who have improved them by buildings, gardens, &c. paying a small yearly tax, these lots have the past winter been valued by commissioners, professedly without reference to improvements, at the round sum of one hundred thousand dolls. Mr. H's two lots for house and school in all 1/2 acre at $8.25. The owners refuse to pay, can put it off in court several years - in consequence, there is no school money and none but private schools. The cedars are 'bonafide' red cedars the tallest kind of tree, good for ports & shipbuilding but not for shingles - The oak openings look just like an old New Eng, orchard, only larger trees. - this place was covered with dense forest of birch and other kinds as well as oaks. The want of timbered land is a general characteristic of the country bank, though as yet probably enough is found for necessary purposes: doubtless a disadvantage, but counterbalance by the greater fertility of the soil, which yields abundant crops of wheat after having been exhausted by crops of corn several years, I have forgotten the amount to the size but two men will, with a reaping machine worked with horses - reap twenty acres in a day - these farmers can sell for cash - .50 pr bushel is less than the usual price. - wheat enough to buy all the fuel and every thing else they need. In some places, in Illinois