66 



it may be that on penetrating to the interior portions of those beds 

 they will improve in quality. 



The section of Nebraska which is now being occupied by settlers 

 has fertile soil, not surpassed by any portion of the prairies of the 

 Mississippi valley. In this eastern section will be found the fertile 

 and wooded, valley of the Elk Horn river, and all the wooded parts of 

 the valley of the River Platte. In the southern portion of it good 

 building stone is furnished by the carboniferous rocks. 



After passing to the west of the 97th meridian we begin to meet 

 with sandy tracts, especially near the 42d i)arallel, in which latitude 

 the sand hills ex::end the tiirthest east. In my former report I said 

 that but a small portion of Nebraska which I had visited is susceptible 

 of cultivation west of the 97th meridian. I did not mean to imply 

 that good land on these prairies would not be found west of it, for 

 there are fertile tracts as far west as the 99th meridian, in the neigh- 

 borhood of streams that are valuable, and contain wood enough to 

 support settlements. In stating that the Territory is overspread by 

 powerful tribes of roving savages, and is only adapted to a life such 

 as theirs, I did not mean to imply that white men could not occupy 

 it, but that if they ever did they would have to lead a life similar to 

 that of the Indians, depending mainly for subsistence not upon the 

 buffalo, but their own herds and flocks for support ; and this is most 

 emphatically true of the region between the 99th meridian and the 

 base of the mountains. 



There is one thing concerning the longitudes of places west of the 

 Missouri river which causes many persons to deceive themselves, and 

 is worthy of mention here. A common idea is that the course of the 

 Missouri is nearly south from Sioux City to Leavenworth City, and 

 that settlers may go as far west of the one place as the other and find 

 fertile lands. But the course of the Missouri between these points is 

 so much to the east that Sioux City is only fifteen miles east of the 

 meridian of Fort Riley, and Fort Randall is as far west as the western 

 limit of the Cross Timbers on the 35th parallel. 



Though the western portion of the prairies of Nebraska is not much 

 inferior to that of corresponding meridians in Kansas and northern 

 Texas, there is no disguising the fact that a great portion of it is 

 irreclaimable desert, with only a little wood and cultivable land along 

 the streams. 



The reasons for this are, 1st, an insufficiency of timely rains ; 2d, 

 over large areas the soil does not possess the proper constituents ; 3d, 

 the severity of the long cold winters and short summers ; and a 4th 

 might be included in the clouds of grasshoppers that occasionally de- 

 stroy the useful vegetation. They are nearly the same as the locusts 

 of Egypt, and no one who has not travelled on the prairie and seen 

 for himself can appreciate the magnitude of these insect swarms. 

 Often they fill the air for many miles of extent so that an experienced 

 eye can scarce distinguish their appearance from that of a shower of 

 rain or the smoke of a prairie fire. The height of their flight may be 

 somewhat appreciated, as Mr. E. James saw them above his head as 

 ar as their size would render them visible while standing on the top 

 of a peak of the Rocky Mountains, 8,500 feet above the level of the 



