310 BUFFALO LAND. 



V 



well be queried, perhaps, whether even the patient 

 man of Uz, had he been laid up by a runaway colt 

 instead of boils, could have resisted the temptation 

 to trade it off upon Bildad the Shuhite, when that 

 individual came to condole with him. 



As we journeyed onward, we found the soil ever 

 the same, in depth and strength equal to an Illinois 

 prairie. The old cretaceous ocean, and the great 

 lakes, certainly left it rich in deposits. When its sur- 

 face shall have been broken by the plow, and the 

 water-fall absorbed instead of shed off, the plains will 

 resemble, in appearance and products, any other 

 prairie country. The amount of moisture annually 

 passing over them, in storm-clouds that burst further 

 east, is abundantly sufficient to make the tract very 

 fertile. It is a well established fact in relation to 

 climatic influences, that moisture attracts moisture ; 

 and in this region the dry ground, with its few shallow 

 streams, has now no claim upon the summer clouds. 

 The tough buffalo grass has put a lock-jaw on the 

 plain. It can drink nothing from the floods of the 

 rainy season. But pry open the hungry mouth with 

 the plowshare, and the earth will drink greedily. 

 The moisture then absorbed, given up through the 

 agency of capillary attraction, will draw the showers 

 of summer, as they are passing over. Already a 

 marked change has taken place over a portion of the 

 plains, and crops have been grown as far west as 

 Fort Wallace. 



The subject of spontaneous generation, I may re- 

 mark in this connection, became a very interesting 

 one to our party. Wherever the soil has been dis 



