The surface of the ground upon which Nauvoo is built is very uneven,
though there are no great elevations. A few feet below the soil is a
vast bed of limestone, from which excellent building material can be
quarried, to almost any extent. A number of _tumuli_, or ancient mounds,
are found within the limits of the city, proving it to have been a
place of some importance with the former inhabitants of the country.
The space comprised within the city limits is about four miles in its
extreme length, and three in its breadth; but is very irregular in its
outline, and does not cover so much ground as the above measurement
would seem to indicate.
The city is regularly laid out, the streets crossing each other at right
angles, and generally of considerable length, and of convenient width.
The majority of the houses are still nothing more than log cabins, but
lately a great number of plank and brick houses have been erected. The
chief edifices of Nauvoo are the temple, and an hotel, called the Nauvoo
House, but neither of them is yet finished; the latter is of brick, upon
a stone foundation, and presents a front of one hundred and twenty feet,
by sixty feet deep, and is to be three stories high, exclusive of the
basement. Although intended chiefly for the reception and entertainment
of strangers and travellers, it contains, or rather will contain, a
splendid suite of apartments for the particular accommodation of the
prophet Joe Smith, and his heirs and descendants for ever.
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