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HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
Tower in Jackson County, through the northern part of Union, and through portions of Williamson, Johnson, Saline, Pope and Hardin Counties. Grand Tower, the initial point in the western part of the State, is an isolated cliff of limestone, standing out in the channel of the Mississippi, and forming an island nearly 100 feet above low-water level. It has been a conspicuous landmark for navigators ever since the discovery of the Mississippi. "Fountain Bluff," a few miles above Grand Tower, is another conspicuous point immediately on the river bank, formed by some isolated hills about three miles long by a mile and a half wide, which have withstood the forces that excavated the valley now occupied by the Mississippi. About half a mile from the lower end of this hill, with a low valley between them, is a smaller eminence known as the "Devil's Bake Oven." The main chain of bluffs, known as the "Back Bone," is about five miles from the river, and rises to a height of nearly 700 feet above low-tide in the Gulf of Mexico, or more than 400 feet above the level of the river at Cairo. "Bald Knob" is a very prominent inland bluff promontory near Alta Pass on the line of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, in the northern part of Union County, with an elevation above tidewater of 985 feet. The highest point in this range of hills is reached in the northeastern part of Pope County-the elevation at that point (as ascertained by Prof. Rolfe of the State University at Champaign) being 1,046 feet.-There is some striking scenery in the neighborhood of Grafton between Alton and the mouth of the Illinois, as well as some distance up the latter stream- though the landscape along the middle section of the Illinois is generally monotonous or only gently undulating, except at Peoria and a few other points, where bluffs rise to a considerable height. On the Upper Illinois, beginning at Peru, the scenery again becomes picturesque, including the celebrated "Starved Rock," the site of La Salle's Fort St. Louis (which see). This rock rises to a perpendicular height of about 125 feet from the surface of the river at the ordinary stage. On the opposite side of the river, about four miles below Ottawa, is "Buffalo Rock," an isolated ridge of rock about two miles long by forty to sixty rods wide, evidently once an island at a period when the Illinois River occupied the whole valley. Additional interest is given to both these localities by their association with early history.
