2 14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



one suddenly comes upon it hidden in a deep valley (almost a gorge in 

 many places) after a long, slow, hot ride of thirty miles or more over 

 the hills. The Dismal has cut in a number of places a very deep canyon 

 through the hills. Often the sides of this canyon are almost perpen- 

 dicular, while elsewhere the banks are not so high or steep. ISTow and 

 then the stream leaps over a ledge of sandstone producing a waterfall a 

 few feet in height which adds to the beauty of the landscape. There 

 are in truth many spots along the Dismal that would make worthy sub- 

 jects for the landscape painter. 



Few would classify Kebraska among the states with lakes, but as a 

 matter of fact there are hundreds of lakes in the state. Many of these 

 lakes are in the Sand Hills, where they usually occur in groups of few 

 to many in various parts of the region. The largest group occurs in 

 Cherry County, with fifty or more lakes. Some of these, such as Hack- 

 berry, Dad's, Clear, Willow, Dewey, Eed Deer, etc., furnish excellent 

 sport to the fisherman and the hunter. Aquatic vegetation furnishes 

 abundant food for both fish and fowl. The lakes vary from small ponds 

 a hundred yards across to bodies of water a mile or more wide and four 

 to five miles long. From the top of a certain hill in Cherry County 

 more than twenty such lakes may be seen.* 



There are many people who still think that the Sand Hill region is 

 a plantless waste of wandering dunes. This is far from fact, but 

 nevertheless the vegetation of the region is sparse and there are also 

 many instances of actively moving sands, although by far the greatest 

 portion of the area is effectively protected from wind erosion by the 

 presence of vegetation. Nowhere except in the moister habitats, as in 

 the valleys, do the plants grow densely or close together. On the hills 

 proper the light-colored sand always shows between the individual 

 plants. In places one may cross over areas two hundred yards or more 

 in width and count all of the plants in his path on his fingers. 



Notwithstanding the sparseness of the vegetation there are very 

 many species represented in the Sand Hill flora, but in spite of this 

 great number of species that are found over the hills and ridges and in 

 the valleys, the most striking characteristic of Sand Hill vegetation is 

 its great monotony due to the domination of bunch-grasses, which are 

 the controlling elements of the floral covering of the whole region. The 

 bunch-grasses are so named because from each root there arise many 

 straight, wiry stems in close proximity, so that a clump or bundle of 

 fifty to a hundred or more stems are densely crowded together. These 

 bunches occur more or less scattered in a way such that the character- 

 istic tufted nature of the vegetation results, and the numerous smaller 

 species that occur in the intervals are quite effectively concealed. 



* Pound and Clements: " Phytogeography of Nebraska," 1898, 



