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Show 252 Early Western Travels [ Vol. 26 This stream, with the larger branch, received its name from the circumstance that the early French settlers of the country, in the zeal of their faith and research for the precious metals, a long while mistook the brilliant specula of horneblende which flow in its dear'waters for silver, and were unwilling to be undeceived in their extravagant anticipations until the absence of the material in their purses aroused them from their error. In the neighbourhood of Rock Spring a shaft for a mine was sunk. 1" It was early one beautiful morning that I found myself approaching the village of Lebanon, though many miles distant in the adjacent plain; appropriately named for its loveliness the " Looking- glass Prairie." The rosy sunbeams were playing lightly over the pleasant country- seats and neat farmhouses, with their white palings, sprinkled along the declivity before me, imbowered in their young orchards and waving maize-fields; while flocks and herds, [ 238] gathered in isolated masses over the intervening meadow, were cropping the rich herbage. To the right and left, and in the rear, the prairie stretches away beyond the view. The body of the village is situated about one mile from these suburbs, and its character and history may be summed up in the single sentence, a pleasant little Methodist country village. The peculiarities of the sect are here strikingly manifested to the traveller in flowing southwesterly joins Silver Creek two miles below Lebanon. The latter stream is about fifty mUes in length, rises in the northern part of Madison County, runs south into St Clair County, and enters Kaskaskia River.- ED. m Tradition telleth of vast treasures here exhumed; and, on strength of this, ten years ago a company of fortune- seekers dug away for several months with an enthusiasm worthy of better success than awaited them.- FLAGG. Comment by Ed. Rock Spring was a mere settlement in St Clair County, eighteen miles from St Louis, on the Vincennes stage road, and about three miles southwest of Lebanon. Its name was derived from a series of springs issuing from a rocky ledge in the vicinity. John M. Peck selected this she ( 1820) for his permanent residence, and established the Rock Spring Theological Seminary and Higji School ( 1827), which four years later was transferred to Alton and made the foundation of Shurtleff College. In 1854 Rock Spring consisted of fourteen families. |