Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1861-06-05

consin Chief; the second is from the
correspondence Of the La Crosse Repub-
lcan.
From the Up Country"
RIVER FALLS, Wis. April. 1861.
T. w. Brown :-Tbirty-s six hours
since was with you in Fort Atkinson,
now | am more than three hundred miles
away, in this glorious st. Croix Valley,
this land of cascades, and Yankees,
where the &C finest of the wheat is grown"
where single mills capable of cutting
from one to two hundred thousand feet
of lumber in day, are with their mil
lion teeth Of steel eating away the forests
f piae that lie a little to the. Northward
from us; where more saving, and grind
ing, and more manufacturing is being
done than those who have never given US
the pleasure of shaking hands with them
on our own soil imagine, and where, at
no distant day, the spindles of cotton
and wooden mills will be successfully
competing with those Of New England.
iiit. NHiiS UNJUST a 1fOTH1
10 estern aoelcon,e to you, and rs many Of
your readers as may be pleased to accept
it, to tell you and them, that t will pay
to come and breathe our bracing air, see
what Yankees haze made of land
which ten years agone was the undspu
ted home of wild m,n and wild animals,
aud make the acquaintance of people,
who, more exclusively than those of any
other region [ ever saw, have come from
the tasscled pine forests CT Maine, the
granite bills Of New Hampshire and the
Green Mountains If Vermont; from the
cid Bay, the Empire, and the rest of the
Now England and the Middle States
Although the see cry of the Upper Mis-
sissippi has been SO often and so fully
described, it furnishes theme that can
never be worn out, but which one must
see, to appreciate no pen can do it
justice. At this season Of the year, the
grand old bluffs along the river have not
sufficiently resumed their robes of green
to have other than somewhat russell hue;
and sometimes whore n spring fire has
run out from the interior, tlev have
darker shade, rs though Crayon Paint
er had dashed them in as part of a OIL
gantic night scene.
The huge crags towering up from six
hundred to thousand feet on either
side, form an ever varying panorama,
some of them looking like old castles.
compared to which the stronghold of the
Earl of Warwick, "the greatest of King
makers" -Kenilworth, covering nearly
seven acres Of ground, where the Earl Of
Leicester used often in olden times to en-
terrain Queen Elizabeth-or the Keeps"
overlooking the Rhine and the Danube
are mere cottages. They have that
swell balanced irregu!arity" which is
the ultimatum in architecture, and the
landscape park or garden. Others, iso-
lated, slender peaks, have rounded heads
and sloping hillside body and base rescm-
blingfowing robes, and the whole bend
ing toward the river. seem like Pilgrims
come eastward from the Rocky Noun
tains, and westward from the AIleganss
to do homage to the Father of Wa
ters," or to look after the rain drops they
had gathered on those distant ranges,
purified in their bosoms, and sent we'll
ing out flo.n their springs to again re-
fresh the earth. Still others seem like
great battlements which the gods in nges
past built up, from which to hurl thun-
derbolts on their euemics. They would
now furnish standpoints for batteries that
could hold the combined armies of the
world ut bay. Among these crags and
glens, and on the bayous winding back
from the river, are game and waterfowl
in quantity and variety rect for the par
adise OF the hunter, and for the loss Of
which the red man NAV well mourn.
And now, ahead, we see moving slow
ly and steadily toward us great plateau
covering acres of water, which proves to
be one of those immense RATS of lumber,
that are annually manufactured in our
Upper Mississippi, St. Cro;x and Cbippe-
wa regions, which is bound for the mar
kct afforded us by the needs of Illinois,
Iowa, and the further south.
On entering Lake Pepn the scene wi
dens, and on the Wisconsin side where
Chippewa forms its confluence with the
Mississippi. has for several miles a less
bold and rugged appearance. Near tho
Southern boundary of Pierce county, "a
county somewhat noted of late from
having taken all the first premiums on
grain, besides other first and second pre-
miums in other departments, at the two
last Wisconsin State Fairs the land
scape again assumes its former general
outline presently, Maiden Rock"
famed in tradition and song, rises to view
noble and unwasting monument of the
tragedy of the suicide of the Indian
Maiden whose heart was broken, and
who chose the long and peaceful sleep, to
life worse than death.
All along the river are the combina-
tons of magnificent distances" and
vast proportions different from anything
| have ever seen elsewhere. and l think
better worth seeing-fuIly in keeping
with being the pathway of that miyhty