198 VARIETIES OF TIMBER. 
found for the most part laid down, with their 
bearings and relative magnitudes, upon the 
map which accompanies this work. It is only 
necessary to say in addition, that none of 
them can ever be availed of to any considera- 
ble extent for purposes of navigation. 
With regard to the productions of the soil of 
these regions, the reader will probably have 
formed, in the main, a tolerably correct idea 
already ; nevertheless a few further specifica- 
tions may not be altogether unacceptable. 
The timber of that portion of the United 
States territory which is included between 
the Arkansas frontier and the Cross Timbers, 
throughout the highlands, is mostly oak of 
various kinds, of which black-jack and post- 
oak predominate, as these, and especially the 
former, seem only capable of withstanding 
the conflagrations to which they are exposed, 
and therefore abound along the prairie bor- 
ders. The black-jack presents a blacken- 
ed, scrubby appearance, with harsh rugged 
branches—partly on account of being so often 
scorched and crisped by the prairie fires. 
About the streams we find an intermixtare 
of elm, hackberry, paccan (or pecan), ash, 
walnut, mulberry, cherry, persimmon, cotton- 
wood, sycamore, birch, etc., with varieties of 
hickory, gum, dogwood, and the like. All of 
the foregoing, except paccan, gum and dog- 
wood, are also found west of Missouri, where, 
although the uplands are almost wholly pral- 
rie, the richest growths predominate in the 
valleys, : 
