SOMETHING TO LAUGH AT. 37 



withholds tlicm ? Other sections of country, under less favorable circum- 

 stances, are not wanting in this respect. 



Why is it? Timber of every kind adapted to the zone and climate will 

 grow as thriftily when planted here, as elsewhere. The frontier forests of 

 our Western States have been observed for years past to make slow but 

 constant encroachment upon contiguous prairies, from all sides, where, as 

 yet, they have a foothold ; — and why ? Partly, because their enlargement 

 is not circumvented by those annual burnings that formerly devoured every 

 tender shoot daring to raise its head above ground ; and, partly, through 

 the operation of other causes, sure and gradual in their effect, which have 

 planted the groves of other lands and taught their branches to wave in the 

 breeze. Doubtless the same causes would produce the same results, all 

 over these vast regions, as elsewhere. 



But, why have they not ? — why are the prairies timberless ? Simply, 

 because a sufficiency of time has not yet elapsed for the operation of these 

 causes, — timber has hitherto had no possible chance for generation. The 

 phenomenon, if rightly viewed, will thus explain itself. Geology points to 

 the time when these vast solitudes were the bed of old Ocean and the home 

 of waves, — but, gradually emerging or suddenly elevated from the watery 

 abyss, they now present some of the more recent formations of dry land. 



Herbage and grass, being more easily propagated than trees, — sown as 

 are their seeds by the birds and scattered by the winds of heaven, — in a 

 brief interval, beswathed the new-born earth with smiling green. Thus 

 clothed with verdancy, they soon became the favorite pastures of the 

 countless herds that thronged them. With game, appeared the red mm 

 to hunt it, and with him the yearly conflagrations that now repel the in- 

 truding woodlands and confirm the unbroken sway of solitude amid her 

 far extending domains. 



Here, then, we have spread before us the prairies as we find them, — the 

 problem of their existence needs no further solution. 



Oct. \1th. Still continuing up the Platte by its south bank, we made 

 camp at night near the head of Grand Island. During our progress we 

 saw large quantities of wild geese and cranes in the river bottoms, that 

 presented tempting marks for our voT/^geurs. One of the latter, — a tall, 

 raw-boned, half-crazed, and self-conlident Missouri " Ned," — good natured 

 and inane, — sporting the familiar soubriquet of "Big Jim," — wishing to 

 prove the truth of the Dogberry axiom, that " some things may be done as 

 well others," started to approach a large flock of sand-hill cranes, parading 

 half obscured in a plat of grass near the road side. 



The wary birds, however, caught glimpse of the approaching Nimrod ^ 

 and flew. Still our hero advanced, crawling upon all-fours, to witliin sixt^ 

 or seventy yards of their recent position, when, raising up, he espyed an 

 object which his excited imagination portrayed a crane, and promptly yielded 

 to it the contents of his rifle. 



Of course the obstinate creature remained in statu quo. 



Re-loading wdth all possible speed, he again flred ! But the second shot 

 proved futile as the first. 



Determined the next should count whether or no, he advanced still 

 nearer, and had raised for his third discharge, before the naked truth burst 



