3. Surface and Soil-The surface of the State is quite level, being for the most part prairie with rich black soil and with few trees. Two lines of hills are found, one in the north and one nearly in the extreme south. The prairie soil makes the best of farm lands, and the agricultural riches of Illinois are among the greatest in the Union.

4. Coal and Lead-Bituminous coal is found in many parts of the State, and lead mines in the northwestern part, near Galena.

5. Railroads and Manufactures Railroads reach in every direction, making travel and the transportation of merchandise easy and comparatively inexpensive. Manufacturing industries of many kinds have sprung up and flourish, affording employment to many thousands of people. Thriving cities are found in every section Chicago, on Lake Michigan, being the second city of the United States in population.

6. Indians The earliest white settlers of Illinois, the French from Canada, found its prairies possessed by a number of Indian tribes. The most prominent were the Illinois Confederacy, from whom the river and the State have the name. This confederacy consisted of five tribes the Tamaroas, Michigamies, Kaskaskias, Cahokias, and Peorias and lived in the central and southern parts of the State. Besides these there were the Shawnees, near the Ohio; the Piankeshaws, in the southeast; the Sacs and Foxes, in the northwest, and the Kickapoos and Potawatamies, near Lake Michigan. These tribes have long since disappeared from the State, some few of their descendants being found in the Indian Territory and in reservations elsewhere.

7. French-The French settlements in Illinois were not very many or very large. They were merely a few villages of farmers and fur-traders scattered along the Illinois, the Kaskaskia, and the Mississippi rivers. Kaskaskia was the main settlement; Fort Chartres, on the Mississippi, was the chief stronghold. The total number of French inhabitants in 1765, when the British took possession, probably did not exceed 1,400, and that number was diminished rather than increased in later years. This did not include negro slaves, of whom there were several hundred.

8. Americans-After Illinois became a part of the United States, American settlers began to find out the value of its rich prairies, and so to come in considerable numbers. The only route followed for many years was by way of the Ohio River, and the early American settlers came mostly from Southern StatesKentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and others. Their settlements were mainly in the southern part of the State. Later it became easier to travel by the great lakes, and immigrants came in that way from Northern and Eastern States.

9. European Immigrants—When the great tide of immigration from Europe to America set in, large numbers came to Illinois from almost every European country, Germany and the Scandinavian lands in particular. The railroads, too, brought a still greater population from Eastern States. The descendants of all these different classes of immigrants compose the people of Illinois to-day. But whatever their ancestry, they are all Americans now.

CHAPTER III

POLITICAL DIVISIONS OF THE STATE

1. Permanent and Temporary Divisions-For convenience of government the State is divided into a number of smaller areas. Some of these are relatively permanent-i.e., they may be changed, and in fact are changed more or less, but at the same time there is no provision for their periodical change. Other divisions of the State are relatively temporry—i.e., they are intended to be changed at rather frequent intervals.

A further difference between these two classes of subdivisions lies in the fact that in one of the permanent areas many functions of government are performed, while in one of the temporary areas there is generally but a single function.

PERMANENT DIVISIONS

2. Counties-First of all, the State is divided into counties. This is a division which the original English colonies introduced, copying it from England. It is now common to all the States. Louisiana calls the divisions parishes, it is true, but they are the same thing.

The first county established within the present limits of Illinois was St. Clair. This was organized by Gov

ernor St. Clair, of the Northwest Territory, in 1790, and included all the land contained by the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Wabash, and the Illinois rivers and a line drawn from the Wabash to the mouth of the Little Mackinaw Creek, at its confluence with the Illinois.

Under the Constitution of the State, the power to organize counties belongs to the General Assembly. There are now 102 counties in Illinois.

The power of the Legislature is limited, however, by some specific requirements. No action may be taken which will make a county area to be less than 400 square miles. No changes may be made in county lines without the assent of the people concerned (Ill. Const., Art. X., §§ 1-3). The day of vast counties largely uninhabited is long since gone by, and changes are not likely, unless in a case such as that of Cook County, in which a great city population makes county government rather cumbersome.

Counties are always given a name, usually that of some man prominent in national, State, or local affairs (p. 123).

But no

The village or city in which the principal functions of county government are performed is called the county seat. This place is fixed by the act of the General Assembly which creates the county. change of such place may be made unless with the assent of three-fifths of the voters of the county, and no county line may be made to run within less than ten miles of a county seat (Ill. Const., Art. X., S$ 1, 4).

3. Towns For the further convenience of local government, any county whose people so desire is divided into towns.

*

4. Townships-In the State Constitution, and in a part of the statute enacted by the General Assembly, the term township is used as applied to these divisions of the county (Ill. Const., Art. X., § 5). But at the same time both Constitution and statute also use the term town in the same sense (Ill. Const., Art. X., §7).† As a matter of fact, township is a term properly used only in the sense of the United States land survey, and always means a piece of land six miles square (p. 31). Doubtless in the act of Congress for the land survey, as well as in the State Constitution as adopted in 1848, it was the expectation that as settlement was made the survey lines would coincide with areas which would be convenient for government. In that case town and township would be identical.

But it has turned out that in many cases it is inconvenient to have the two areas coincide, so that not a few towns are quite different geographically from Congressional townships, one town often containing portions of two or more townships. For this reason we shall speak of townships only in the sense of the land survey, and of the subdivisions of a county for purposes of local government always as towns. In this sense of the terms, it will be noticed, also, that towns are always named, while townships are always numbered.

At this time (1899) 83 of the 102 counties of the State are divided into towns.

5. How Towns Are Formed-A county may be divided into towns whenever a majority of the voters at a general election favor the proposition. In that

*Rev. Stat., c. 139, §§ 1-4.

+ Rev. Stat., c. 139, §§ 5-8.