40 Origin, Extension and Continuance of Prairies. 



ed. The advantage of the algebraic process, consists in its simpli- 

 city and in the universality of its application. This results from the 

 circumstance that the meridian line not being limited in its position, 

 may be made to pass through any station of the field, wherever 

 it may be convenient to commence either the measurement or the 

 calculation. If its position is such as to divide the field into equal or 

 nearly equal parts, the multipliers or factors are lessened in quantity, 

 and considerable labor is sa^ed in the calculation, and the liability to 

 error in the several computations in a corresponding degree dimin- 

 ished. B. 



Art. VIII. — On the Origin, Extension and Continuance of Prairies; 

 extracted and abridged from unpublished MSS. on a theory of the 

 Earth; by Dr. Rush Nutt, of Rodney, State of Mississippi. 



We can conceive that a prairie may proceed from the joint action of 

 two causes. First, from the influence of a cane-brake ; and secondly, 

 from wind and fire. It has been shown that cane exerts a considerable 

 influence on a forest of timber; that it can completely obscure the rays 

 of the sun, as well as form by its roots an astonishing mat-work over 

 the face of the earth, so dense that it is utterly impossible for any 

 seed to vegetate and for the earth to bring forward a single tree. 

 Our knowledge of the natural history of the cane, does not enable 

 us to know the length of time it is in seeding. More than half of 

 the cane of Mississippi and Louisiana went to seed in the year 1830. 

 It had riot seeded to such an extent, during the fifty preceding years. 

 A few stalks or a few square yards of the cane, seed and die every 

 year, but when stalks seed again from the same root, we do not know 

 whether so general a seeding as that just mentioned proceeded from 

 natural or from accidental causes ; such as long feeding up, with the 

 unusual vicissitudes of the weather of a few preceding years. The 

 stalk and root die with the ripening of the seed, which will vegetate 

 and come forward the following year, unless prevented by such a 

 drowth as followed the period alluded to. However, our want of a 

 full knowledge of the natural history of the cane, is not very important 

 in the case before us, as we can readily conceive of a cane-brake 

 contending with, and finally overcoming, extensive regions of forest 

 trees. If the cane keeps possession of the same land for five hun- 

 dred or (I thousand years, (as we think it does,) it will of course wear 



