12 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



vast sloping plain which stretches from the foot of the Rocky 

 Mountains to the Mississippi River. It is lowest along the border 

 line of the Ozarks and along its eastern edge which fronts the 

 Mississippi River, rising from 800' along this belt to 1100' south 

 of Kansas City and to 1200' near the northwestern corner of the 

 state. It is a gently undulating plain of rich soil, largely brought 

 there by glacial action and thus differing greatly from that of 

 southern Missouri, which is the result of decomposed native rocks. 

 The valleys in the prairie region are true flood plains with flat 

 floors, cut into soft shale, generally broad with gently sloping 

 sides and extremely tortuous channels. All the valleys were 

 originally heavily wooded, and remnants of the primeval forests 

 are still found in the Mississippi and Missouri River bottoms 

 and on their bluffs, but most of the timber of the prairie region 

 has been removed, leaving only thin strips of woods along the 

 streams with occasional artificial groves. Tree growth of vari- 

 able size and quality once covered the entire Ozark region, 

 heavy and of valuable kind in the valleys and along hillsides, low 

 and of little value on the dry ridges and flats west of the Pine 

 and White Oak region. The best parts of all the valleys have 

 long been cleared and are devoted to agricultural pursuits; 

 eveiywhere, high and low, the best timber is being rapidly cut 

 out and removed; whole stretches have been transformed into 

 orchards, and farms are springing up everywhere, even on the 

 remotest hilltops. But there is still a vast amount of tree 

 growth, so much so that, looking over the country from some 

 eminence in the Ozarks, the eye meets hardly anything but vast 

 stretches of woodland for miles and miles in all directions. The 

 character of these woods is rather disappointing, for upon close 

 inspection it is found to be of little commercial value, consisting 

 in large part of medium-sized and small Blackjack and Post 

 Oaks. Formerly Pine trees {Pinus echinata) grew in large 

 quantities on silicious ground along the divide and southern slope 

 of the Ozarks from St. Francois Co. to Taney Co., but they are 

 mostly gone or disappearing at a rapid rate, being replaced only 

 by scrub-oaks with no prospect for a continuation of pine woods 

 in any part of the region, as the growth of Pinus echinata is toa 

 slow to make j^lanting profitable and the annual burning over 

 of the forest floor has jjrevented natural reproduction. 



The flood-plains of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and the 

 bluffs bordering them play such an important part in the dis- 



