An American State as large as England and Wales; has the Mississippi for its western, the Ohio for its southern boundary, with Wisconsin and Lake Michigan in the N. and Indiana on the E.; fourth in population, seventeenth in area; "the Prairie State" is level, well watered, and extremely fertile; has a climate subject to extremes, but, except in the swamps, healthy. It produces enormous quantities of wheat, besides other cereals, of tobacco and temperate fruits. Flour-milling, pork-packing, and distilling are the chief industries. The most extensive coal-deposits in America are in this State; with navigable rivers on its borders, and traversing it Lake Michigan, a great canal, and the largest railway system in the Union, it is admirably situated for commercial development; originally acquired by Britain from the French, who entered it from Canada; it was ceded to the Americans in 1783, and admitted to the Union 1818; the State spends $12,000,000 annually on education, which is compulsory, and has a large and wealthy scientific and agricultural university at Urbana. Springfield is the capital; but Chicago (1,100) is the largest city.
The Nuttall Encyclopædia: Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge[1] is a late 19th-century encyclopedia, edited by Rev. James Wood, first published in London in 1900 by Frederick Warne & Co Ltd.
WikipediaEditions were recorded for 1920, 1930, 1938 and 1956 and was still being sold in 1966. Editors included G. Elgie Christ and A. L. Hayden for 1930, Lawrence Hawkins Dawson for 1938 and C. M. Prior for 1956.[2]
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