COUNTRY FOR TWO NEW STATES. 193 
too flat, and consequently inclined to be 
marshy. The valleys of the streams are 
principally of a rich loam, rather subject to 
inundations, but mostly tillable. The tim- 
bered uplands are mostly of fair quality, except 
onthe broken ridges and mountainous sections 
before referred to. Some of the uplands, how- 
ever, known usually as ‘post-oak flats, like 
the marshy prairies, seem to be based upon 
guick-sand. The soil is of a dead unproduc- 
tive character, and covered with small lumps 
or mounds of various sizes, and of irregular 
shapes. 
The country lying west of Missouri, which 
includes the sources of the Neosho, the Verdi- 
gris, the Marais-des-Cygnes and other branches 
of the Osage, and the lower sections of the 
Kansas river, vies with any portion of the 
Far West in the amenity of its upland prai- 
ries—in the richness of its alluvial bottoms—in 
the beauty and freshness of its purling rills and 
rivulets—and in the salubrity of its atmo- 
spher 
P Wel have here then, along the whole border, 
a strip of country, averaging at least two hun- 
dred miles wide by five hundred long—an 
even more if we extend it up the Missouri 
river—affording territory for two States, respec- 
table in size, and though more scant in timber, 
yet more fertile, in general, than the two con- 
terminous States of Missouri and Arkansas. 
But most of this delightful region has been 
ceded to the different tribes of the Frontier 
Indians. 
VOL. II. 17 
