and which has caused explorers and researchers to turn to Africa, and other countries, in search of the place; and Dr. Warren, with all his learning and ingenuity, to the North Pole. But we have found it where he and others, can come and see for themselves.

It is located on the “eastward bank” of the Mississippi River, between the beautiful cities of La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Winona Minnesota. Please notice the beauty and euphony of those names. The Mississippi—the bible Euphrates—river, being one of the longest and most picturesque rivers in the world. Its valley, proper—with its tributaries, some of which reach far out into “Havilah” the “Land of good gold”—extends from the Alleghany mountains on the eastern border, 2,000 miles westward to the Rocky mountains on the western border, and from the Gulf of Mexico, on the south, extending 2,000 miles north, across the United States into the Bridtish possessions. This vast area, Eden,—containing the most fertile and habitable region of earth, and is being settled and inhabited by the most industrious, enlightened, christianized and well to-do people in the world; the asylum or universal home of the oppressed and needy of all lands,—contains “The heart of the New World,” the “Land of Promise,” in this Christian United [pg 9] States of America. Central in this domain, Eden, is our Garden of Eden. The soil is not a deep, rich paste, like the American bottoms opposite St. Louis, on the same river, which is known to be the richest land in the world, but higher, drier, and more habitable, easily cultivated, and adapted to gardening.

The river here, as in most places, has three banks; the first a little above high water mark,—densely covered with forest trees, which consitutes the islands and “river bottoms”—cut up by water courses and sloughs. The river and bottoms are about two miles wide, over and through which the “Laughing” and “Father of waters,” courses, run, and play their dances. The second bank is high and dry above the hightest water mark,—and generally smooth prairie, and ready in the state of nature for the garden plow—extending back on one or both sides of the river for miles, making a valley at this place, of about ten miles in the widest, when we reach the bank, bluff, or rocky wall, which rises—on each side of our garden—to the altitude of 600 feet above the river, being the point of the highest bluffs on the Mississippi.

Nineteen miles above La Crosse, and twelve miles below Winona, on the “eastward bank,” nestles, and spreads out that most beautiful town site, Trempealeau, on which ought now to be a large city, and which doubtless would have been but for the greed and ignorance of a part of its original proprietors, who being told, and thinking they had the “nicest,” “most beautiful,” “splendid,” town site on the Mississippi river, they were bound to get rich at once, “but not knowing [pg 10] their day,” and how to build up a town like, the fabled dog, “they grabbed for the shadow and lost the reality;” “Their language was confounded and their work delayed.” Here on the second bank, is raised, our “Hanging Garden,” a crescent bluff, high as the outside wall, extending three miles up the river, terminating at each end in a point, and one mile through the center, being in the form of a new moon, and unlike anything of the kind, so far as known, in the entire world, and must be seen to be appreciated.

This is not one solid smooth topped hill, but possesses all the variety of bluff formation, containing groves of forest trees, ravines, slopes, scattered rocks, and perpendicular ledges facing the river, like the “Face of a King,” some of these ledges are 200 ft. high, commencing more than half way up the mound, then rising perpendicular to near the very top. The top of this hanging garden has its slopes, mounds, pyramids, domes, and pinnacles, in most beautiful variety; and at the present time, it is dotted with fields of grain, and specked with stone quarries and lime kilns. Now, please, place yourself with me on the “Central Outer Dome” “Heald's quarry,” facing toward the eastward, and you have, before, below, and around you the veritable Garden of Eden; a valley scene, in extent and importance unequalled in America, and I think, in the world. Not like the Yosemite, small, romantic grand but uninhabitable or unfit for a garden, but the very beau ideal of a garden.

Now that we are up where we can see, let us look across and around this garden. [pg 11] Turn, now and face the south-west. There, before and below you flows the Mississippi, whose name is as euphonious as the Euphrates, or its own flowing waters. See its “Broad channels,” queer and picturesque islands, its trees and vine-clad bottoms, lovely beyond description; its general course, not meandering, but evenly hugging the base of the Minnesota bluffs, or western wall of the garden, which it does for some twenty-five miles, or from just below Winona, to just above La Crosse, running in a southeasterly and southern direction, making a beautiful curve, leaving the main garden valley on the “Eastward” bank, in the form of a section of an ampitheater, 35 miles long, 5 miles wide at each end, and 10 miles through the center. This vast valley plain is our Garden of Eden. Now, Look! as thousands before you have done in wonder and surprise! Look immediately around you, over the hanging garden on which you stand, and, look out for snakes, for how could you have such a garden without a “Serpent.”, And this hanging garden has been notable and notorious for rattlesnakes, from time immemorial, handed down in their Indian name “rattlesnake hills,” and including Mount Trempealeau, (a separate and distinct pyramid) was formerly “Literally alive with rattlesnakes.” Mr. Dovile, one of the first white settlers at Trempealeau, who built his shanty on the bank, a few rods from the river, killed, and kept count of ninety great rattlesnakes the first season, in, and crossing his foot-path from his house to the river, saying nothing of how many he killed elsewhere.

[pg 12]

But as Christians have taken possession of the hanging garden, the serpents have been destroyed, or are disappearing.

The scenery now around us surpasses my power of adequate description, as do the great lakes. Superior, Michigan, Huron,—and so on down the line,—in their