Madison, Dane County and surrounding towns; being a history and guide to places of scenic beauty and historical note .. . r its subsequent sessions, until1839, at Burlington, now in Iowa; but, as will readilybe understood, it is far more easy to construct a cityon paper than to build one on the solid earth. Castlesin the air are very often erected before breakfast, butthere is just one drawback, that nobody ever dines insuch structures. Madison city was then, vide pros-pectuses, the metropolitan center of cities, corres-ponding to the seven hills of Rome, when, in fact,it was only a village in
Madison, Dane County and surrounding towns; being a history and guide to places of scenic beauty and historical note .. . r its subsequent sessions, until1839, at Burlington, now in Iowa; but, as will readilybe understood, it is far more easy to construct a cityon paper than to build one on the solid earth. Castlesin the air are very often erected before breakfast, butthere is just one drawback, that nobody ever dines insuch structures. Madison city was then, vide pros-pectuses, the metropolitan center of cities, corres-ponding to the seven hills of Rome, when, in fact,it was only a village in faturo. The beauty of the surrounding country, with itstwelve lakes, might well have concentrated attentionupon Dane county, and the four lakes in Yahara, orCatfish valley, lying almost in a direct line fromnorthwest to southeast, could not fail to be recognizedas the regal crown of all this natural loveliness. Ke-gonsa, or First Lake, lowest of the four bodies ofwater, covers five square miles, having a circumfer-ence of nine miles and a half, its longest diameterbeing over three miles, and its shortest fully ii! § :-l!!|fllllil! HISTORY OF MADISON. 33 Waubesa, the Second Lake, is three miles and a halfabove Kegonsa, in the towns of Dunn and BloomingGrove. This lake has an average depth of twelvefeet of crystal clear water, through which the pebblybottom can be seen as if through glass. This beauti-ful sheet of crystal is three and a half miles long byabout two miles across. Monona, the lovely ThirdLake, is only seven-eighths of a mile above Waubesa,covering an area of six square miles, being six and ahalf miles long by two broad, and the strip of landwhich divides this lake from Mendota, the FourthLake, is the site of the capital of Wisconsin. Thepainters pencil can alone do justice to the scene;words fail to convey an adequate conception of thepicturesque effect which is mirrored to the brain, whenan artist looks from the high ground, or still better,from the cupola
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookidmadisondanec, bookyear1877
