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HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
this agrees generally with the records of the early French explorers, except that they regarded the region -which comprehends the site of the present city of Chicago-the importance of which appears to have been appreciated from the first as a connecting link between the Lakes and the upper tributaries of the rivers falling into the Gulf of Mexico-as belonging thereto
ORIGIN OF THE NAME.-The "Country" appears to have derived its name from Inini, a word of Algonquin origin, signifying "the men," euphemized by the French into Illini with the suffix ois, signifying "tribe." The root of the term, applied both to the country and the Indians occupying it, has been still further defined as "a perfect man" (Haines on "Indian Names"), and the derivative has been used by the French chroniclers in various forms though always with the same signification-a signification of which the earliest claimants of the appellation, as well as their successors of a different race, have not failed to be duly proud.
BOUNDARIES AND AREA.-It is this region which gave the name to the State of which it constituted so large and important a part. Its boundaries, so far as the Wabash and the Ohio Rivers (as well as the Mississippi from the mouth of the Ohio to the mouth of the Illinois) are concerned, are identical with those given to the "Illinois Country" by Pittman. The State is bounded on the north by Wisconsin; on the east by Lake Michigan, the State of Indiana and the Wabash River; southeast by the Ohio, flowing between it and the State of Kentucky; and west and southwest by the Mississippi, which separates it from the States of Iowa and Missouri. A peculiarity of the Act of Congress defining the boundaries of the State, is the fact that, while the jurisdiction of Illinois extends to the middle of Lake Michigan and also of the channels of the Wabash and the Mississippi, it stops at the north bank of the Ohio River; this seems to have been a sort of concession on the part of the framers of the Act to our proud neighbors of the "Dark and Bloody Ground." Geographically, the State lies between the parallels of 36° 59' and 42° 30' north latitude, and the meridian of 10° 30' and 14° of longitude west from the city of Washington. From its extreme southern limit at the mouth of the Ohio to the Wisconsin boundary on the north, its estimated length is 385 miles, with an extreme breadth, from the Indiana State line to the Mississippi River at a point between Quincy and Warsaw, of 218 miles. Owing to the tortuous course of its river and lake boundaries, which
comprise about three-fourths of the whole, its physical outline is extremely irregular. Between the limits described, it has an estimated area of 56,650 square miles, of which 650 square miles is water-the latter being chiefly in Lake Michigan. This area is more
