QUATERNARY AGE. 271 



are considerable numbers of ponds, covering from a few acres to 

 half a section of land, grown up around the border with reeds and 

 coarse grasses and sedges, and where the water is deeper, with ar- 

 row-leaves, pond-lillies, and other water-plants. In every instance 

 where I had opportunity to examine them, there was a thin bed of 

 clayey matter mixed with organic materials, from a few inches to 

 a foot or more in thickness, lying on the bottom, and on top of the 

 Loess deposit. This clayey matter was probably deposited there 

 before the waters finally retired from the old lake-bed in which 

 this soil originated. In the stiller portions of the lake, or in eddies, 

 about the time it commenced to be dry land, when portions were 

 already cut off from the main lake except in flood-time, in these 

 isolated pools all the clay in solution would be precipitated to the 

 bottom, before the next annual rise of the waters. This I propose 

 as a provisional explanation of this phenomenon. 



FRUIT ON THE LOESS DEPOSITS. 



In these Loess deposits are found the explanation of the ease 

 with which nature produces the wild fruits in Nebraska. So dense 

 are the thickets of wild grapes and plums along some of the bot- 

 toms and bluffs of the larger streams that it is difficult to penetrate 

 them. Over twenty varieties of wild plums have *been observed, 

 all of them having originated . either from Prunus Americana, P. 

 chickasa, or P. pumillu. Only two species of grapes are clearly 

 outlined, namely, Vitis cesfivalis and V. cardifolia, but these have 

 such interminable variations that the botanist becomes discouraged 

 in attempting to draw the lines between them, and to define the 

 ranee and limit of the varieties. The same remark could be 



O 



made of the strawberries. Raspberries and blackberries abound in 

 many parts of the State. The buffalo-berry (Shepherdia Canadensis] 

 is common on many of the Missouri and Republican River bot- 

 toms. Many other wild fruits abound, and grow with wonderful 

 luxuriance wherever timber protects them and prairie fires are re- 

 pressed. As would be expected, these deposits are also a paradise 

 for the cultivated fruits of the temperate zones. They luxuriate in 

 a soil like this, which has perfect natural drainage, and is composed 

 of such materials. No other.region, except the valleys of the Nile 

 and of the Rhine, can, in these respects, compare with the Loess 

 deposits of Nebraska. The Loess of the Rhine supplies Europe 

 with some of its finest wines and grapes. The success that has al- 



