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28 the water courses; the grass in the old days grew rank and high and one could tell his course only, perhaps, by the stars, if the pathways were obscured. The paths in these prairies are overgrown in the summer and it is probable that this is why Clark's guide, attempting to find the Kaskaskia Trace, lost his bearings. The important landmarks in these prairies were the forests which often bounded them and in many instances extended into them. These extremities of the forests were and are still known as "points," and many of them are yet landmarks in Illinois history. A spring beside a point in a prairie made an ideal camping-spot known to half a continent in the olden time. Clark's campground in Phelps Prairie was, without doubt, at a spring just west of Bainbridge.

Northward from Phelps Prairie two routes ran to Kaskaskia: a wet and a dry route. The one which we may call the highland route led north through Herrin's Prairie and swung around to the Mississippi by heading such streams as Pipestone, Rattlesnake, and Galium, crossing the Big Muddy