THE GRASS BELT 95 



grama-grass, two or three inches high, among which 

 dwarf herbs are scattered. These grasses are very low 

 and dry-looking, with narrow, rolled-in, wire-like leaves; 

 by means of their runners, they make a dense, velvety 

 carpet upon the thick felt mat of their tangled roots. 

 The power of the soil to retain moisture naturally 

 exercises a great influence where water is so scarce, 

 and the composition of the sward varies accordingly. 

 Buffalo-grass is rominent, often exclusively present, on 

 clay or sandy grounds, whilst grama-grass and prairie 

 grass are more abundant on loams. 



Now and then the flat plain heaves up into rolling 

 wolds, or even into undulations. The ridges then pre- 

 serve the dry steppe aspect, but the troughs assume an 

 appearance more or less approaching that of our pastures. 

 On porous soils, prickly plants, small species of opuntias 

 or prickly pears, and cerei are in evidence. Towards 

 the eastern margins, plants grow taller, flowers are more 

 abundant, and the prairie gradually passes to the meadows 

 of the east. On the poorest and most permeable territories, 

 like those on the north of the Platte River, the prairie 

 approximates to the true desert and forms what is known 

 as the ' Bad-Lands ' : arid tracts, hilly, creviced, and 

 broken, on the loose soil of which frequently ' not a speck 

 of green is visible '. Where vegetation appears, it is 

 composed now of dwarf cacti and prickly pears, now of 

 small, fleshy-leaved, thorny bushes one or two feet high ; 

 further on of patches of woolly, greyish eurotia (Com- 

 l^ositae). Another variety of the prairie landscape is 

 found on the sand-hills which extend in a broken belt 

 over parts of Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas : 

 these rolling downs are covered with a sparse crop of 

 bunch-grasses. As the great plains slowly rise to meet 

 the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains they undulate 



