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GREAT WESTERN Seunies 179 
Pa 
is scarcely a province in the whole wide range 
of Nature’s unexplored domains, which is so 
worthy of study, and yét has been so little 
studied by the natural pliilosopher. 
If we look at the Great Western Prairiés, 
independently of the political powers to which 
portions of them respectively belong, we shall 
find them occupying the whole of that exten- 
sive territory lying between the spurs of the 
Rocky Mountains on the north, and the rivers 
of Texas on the south—a distanc eof some 
seven or eight hundred miles in one direction ; 
and from the frontiers of Missouri and Arkan- 
sas on the east to the eastern branches of the 
southern Rocky Mountains on the west— 
about six hundred miles in the transverse di- 
rection: the whole comprising an area of 
about 400,000 square miles, some 30,000 of 
which are within the original limits of Texas, 
and 70,000 in those of New Mexico (if we 
extend them east to the United States bound- 
ary), leaving about 300,000 in the territory of 
the United States. 
is vast territory is not interrupted by 
any important mountainous elevations, ex- 
pit along the borders of the. great *western 
s, and by some low, craggy ridges about 
the ; dee nadais frontier—skirts of the Ozark 
mountains. There is, it is true, high on the 
dividing ridge between Red River and the 
False Washita, a range of hills, the south- 
western portion of which extends about to 
the 100th degree of longitude west from 
Greenwich; that is, to the United States 
