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Notes on Virginia: the Illinois and a portage

Author: Thomas Jefferson Year: 1785 Length: 462 characters Difficulty: demanding Public domain

Four numbers in three sentences, each one wedged between capitalised place names, which trains quick returns to the home row.

The Illinois is a fine river, clear, gentle, and without rapids; insomuch that it is navigable for batteaux to its source. From thence is a portage of 2 miles only to the Chickago, which affords a batteau navigation of 16 miles to its entrance into Lake Michigan. The Illinois, about 10 miles above its mouth, is 300 yards wide. The Kaskaskia is 100 yards wide at its entrance into the Missisipi, and preserves that breadth to the Buffalo plains, 70 miles above.

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A woman in a blue dress sits on a bench beside a standing man under an oak, with a wheat field behind, Mr and Mrs Andrews, Thomas Gainsborough, 1748.
What you just typedNotes on Virginia: the Illinois and a portageThomas Jefferson, 1785
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About this text

The portage of two miles that Jefferson mentions is the link between the Chicago river and the Illinois. That route later carried the Illinois and Michigan canal, opened in 1848. He gives widths in yards and distances in miles for river after river. The city of Chicago grew at the point he calls the Chickago.

About this text

The portage of two miles that Jefferson mentions is the link between the Chicago river and the Illinois. That route later carried the Illinois and Michigan canal, opened in 1848. He gives widths in yards and distances in miles for river after river. The city of Chicago grew at the point he calls the Chickago.

What it trains

Four numbers in three sentences, each one wedged between capitalised place names, which trains quick returns to the home row.

Public domain

Copyright has expired or never applied, so anyone can copy the text and use it further.

Source: domena publiczna, Wikisource

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