Michigan Southern and Northern Railroads, 58 miles from Chicago, on the northern margin of the beautiful and fertile Door Prairie, so named from an Indian chief. It was first organized as a city in 1853, is a very flourishing business place, and has 9 churches and 6,000 inhabitants.

Bloomington, the county seat of Monroe county, is on the line of the New Albany and Salem Railroad, 96 miles north from New Albany. It was

laid out in 1818, by Benjamin Park, agent for the county commissioners. Its public buildings are substantial, and the public square pleasantly ornamented with shade trees and shrubbery. It is noted as a place of education. It has two female seminaries, and is the seat of the State University, founded in 1835. Greencastle, capital of the neighboring county of Putnam, 40 miles by railroad west of Indianapolis, is the seat of the Indiana Asbury University, founded in 1837, and which is not excelled by any institution in the state. Unusual attention is given in this vicinity to the cultivation of fruit, the apple, pear, peach and grape, for which the soil is well adapted. Crawfordsville, the county seat of Montgomery, which adjoins Putnam on the north, is on the New Albany and Salem Railroad, and 45 miles northwest of Indianapolis. It is in a rich country, and is the seat of Wabash College, founded in 1835, an institution of excellent repute. Bloomington, Greencastle, and Crawfordsville, have each about 2,500 inhabitants.

Corydon, the county seat of Harrison county, in southern Indiana, is a town of about 1,200 inhabitants. In 1813, the seat of government of the Territory of Indiana was removed from Vin

cennes to this place. When, in 1816, Indiana was erected into a state, Corydon was made the capital, and so remained until 1825, when it was removed to Indianapolis. The court house here, built of stone, was the original state house, and the edifice in which was formed the first constitution of Indiana.

It was laid out in the year 1813, by John Francis Denfour and Daniel Denfour, emigrants from Switzerland, who, in remembrance of their native town, gave it its present name. Part of the land was entered by John James Denfour and his associates, in the beginning of the present century, and an extended credit given, by an act of congress, with a view of encouraging the culture of the grape.

In the south part of Indiana are some curiosities of nature. Eleven miles from Corydon, and in Crawford county, is the Wyandot Cave, which is considered by many to equal the celebrated Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. It has been explored for several miles, and found to contain magnificent chambers and galleries, rich in stalactites and other lime concretions. Two other curiosities, which are near the line of the Ohio and Mississippi railroad, have only come into notice since the construction of that work. The Jug Rock is at Shoal Station, in Martin county, 150 miles west of Cincinnati, and derives its name from its resemblance in form to a homely and useful utensil. It is a lone standing pillar of sandstone, of about seventy feet in hight, in the midst of a forest of beach and sugar trees. It is an unusual object for this region; but in the valley of the Upper Missouri and on the high table lands farther west such formations abound. Lieut. Simpson, in his explorations in New Mexico, found at one spot "high sandstone rocks of almost every shape and character imaginable. There were to be seen at once, domes, pillars, turrets, pinnacles, spires, castles, vases, tables, pitched roofs, and a number of other objects of a well defined figurative character."

Near Mitchell's Station, in Lawrence county, 28 miles east of the above, is Hamer's Mill Stream Cave. Water flows out at all seasons sufficient to furnish motive power for a saw mill, grist mill, and a distillery located about a quarter of a mile from the opening. It is owned by Mr. Hugh Hamer. The source of the stream has never been ascertained. At the time of the construction of the railroad, two of

the surveyors attempted to explore it to its source. They entered it in a canoe, and were absent two days and the intervening night, penetrating it, as they judged, about nine miles, and without reaching its termination. No particular change was found in the dimensions of the cavity, excepting an occasional opening out into large chambers. Such an exploration in certain seasons would be perilous. Often, after a hard shower of rain, the water suddenly rises and pours out in such a volume as to completely fill up the mouth of the cavern, issuing from it like water from the pipe of a fire engine. In 1856, Capt. John Pope, of the corps of U. S. topographical engineers, discovered a similar curiosity near the base of the Rocky Mountains, in about lat. 32 deg. and long. 105 deg., which he named Phantom River. A stream of some 60 feet in width came out of one cave, ran 150 feet in daylight, and then plunging into another by a cascade of a great but unknown depth, was seen no

more.

It has been explored about nine miles in a canoe. It furnishes motive power for two mills and a distillery.

Beside the towns described, Indiana contains numerous others of from 1,500 to 2,500 each. These are mostly county seats, some of them on railroad lines, and places of active business. They are, Attica, in Fountain

county; Aurora, in Dearborn county; Cambridge City, in Wayne county; Cannelton, in Perry county; Columbus, in Bartholomew county; Connersville, in Fayette county; Delphi, in Carroll county; Franklin, in Johnson county; Goshen, in Elkhart county; Greensburg, in Decatur county; Huntington, in Huntington county; Mishawaka, in St. Joseph county; Mt. Vernon, in Posey county; Muncie, in Delaware county; Peru, in Miami county; Princeton, in Gibson county; Rising Sun, in Ohio county; Rockville, in Parke county; and Shelbyville, in Shelby county.