GEOLOGY. 295 



region was a small strip of woodland, from 5 to 30 miles in width} 

 called the Cross Timbers, extending from the Arkansas river in a 

 southwesterly direction to the Brazos some 500 miles. On the 

 eastern side of this belt is a well watered champaigne country abound- 

 ing with timber, teeming with vegetation, here and there interspersed 

 with verdant glades and small prairies, and affording inexhaustible 

 grazing and the most beautiful natural meadows that can be imagined. 

 To the westward commence those barren and desolate wastes, where 

 but few and unimportant streams greet the eyes of the few travellers 

 who visit that region, and but little wood is found, except on the 

 borders of the water courses. The explorers particularly remarked 

 this change in the valley of the river which they were ascending. 

 As they passed to the westward of the Cross Timbers, the country 

 suddenly changed its character. The bluffs approached nearer the 

 river and the bottoms did not support that dense and heavy vegetation 

 which characterized the lower part of the stream. The undergrowth 

 of cane-brakes and vines disappeared, the land gradually rose into 

 broad and elevated swells, with spacious intervening valleys, and the 

 soil became more sterile until they reached the 101st degree of west 

 longitude ; and from this point onward, with but few exceptions, 'they 

 found no more arable land. 



The lied river flows for a hundred miles over a gypsum formation, 

 which is considered by Dr. Hitchcock to be the most extensive in the 

 known world ; and it is to this fact that Capt. Marcy ascribes the 

 peculiarly bitter and disagreeable taste which characterizes its waters. 

 He says that the Arkansas, Canadian, Brazos, Colorado and Pecos 

 rivers all pass over this formation, and a similar taste is imparted to 

 each. All these rivers, too, have their sources in the borders of the 

 same elevated table lands, and where they make their exit from this 

 plateau, their waters are confined within vast sluices, or canons, the 

 sides of which rise abruptly to an enormous height. Capt. Marcy 

 observes : 



" This defile on Red river is 70 miles in length, the escarpments 

 from 500 to 800 ft. high on each side, and in many places they approach 

 so near the water's edge that there is not room for a man to pass ; and 

 occasionally it is necessary to travel for miles in the bed of the river, 

 before a spot is found where a horse can clamber up the precipitous 

 sides of the chasm. I could not determine in my own mind whether 

 this remarkable defile had been formed after a long lapse of time by 

 the action of the current, or had been produced by some great con- 

 vulsion of nature." 



The barren plain in which these rivers take their rise is about 3650 

 feet above the level of the sea. It extends in a southerly direction 

 from the Canadian river about 400 miles, and in some places is nearly 

 200 miles in width. It is an ocean of trackless, desert prairie, where 

 no animal resides, and through which few living creatures wander. 

 Even the Indians venture to cross it only at two places, where they 

 find a few small ponds which suffice to sustain life. Many years since 

 the Mexicans marked out a route across the plain with stakes, and 



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