274 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TEEEITOEIES. 



EXPERIMENTS IN CULTIVATION ON THE PLAINS ALONG THE 

 LINE OF THE KANSAS PACIFIC RAILWAY. 



By E. S. Elliott. 



The treeless plains between tlie Platte and Arkansas Elvers may be 

 said to extend from the ninety-seventh meridian of longitude to the 

 Eocky Mountains. Xorth of the Platte and south of the Arkansas the 

 general features of the country are similar, but for the purpose of this 

 report we need only have in view the region between the rivers. Its 

 drainage is mainly through the Kansas Eiver, the numerous affluents of 

 which afford, in pools or currents, the water-supplies which have enabled 

 the buffalo to sustain himself in all its parts. Along some of the streams 

 there are occasional groves and fringes of timber — ash, box-elder, cedar, 

 cherry, cotton-wood, elm, hackberry, oak, plum, walnut, and willow -, some 

 of the species persistent to the mountains, but not in numbers or distri- 

 bution sufficient to change the character of the country from that of 

 open, treeless plains, risiug graduall}' from about 1,000 feet above the 

 level of the sea at the ninety-seventh meridian to more than 5,000 feet 

 at Denver. 



There is great uniformity in the surface of this immense inclined 

 plane. The face of the country presents a series of gentle undulations, 

 but there are no points of much elevation above the general surface, 

 nor any great depressions below it. The geology seems to be in har- 

 mony witJi the surface features, as the earths and rocks of this vast 

 region, five hundred miles in width, range from Lower Cretaceous, 

 ( jludge,) on its eastern border, to the later Tertiaries of the Lake period, 

 (Hayden and Xewberry,) near the base of the mountains. 



Open on the north to the arctic circle, and on the south to the Eio 

 Grande, with no mountain ranges or extensive forests to check atmos- 

 pheric movements, the great plains must necessarily be swept by winds 

 as freelj' as the ocean. In spring and summer the winds from the 

 southward are most prevalent. In winter the winds are more frequent 

 from the northward. In the autumn they are ai)t to be more variable, 

 and at the same time of more gentle character. Wind from the west is 

 seldom observed. The winds are often strong, but thej' cannot be 

 classed with destructive gales. They come with a steady pressure, 

 which may cause a frail building to tremble, but will not overturn it. 

 Tornadoes and hurricanes seem to be unknown. There is no record or 

 tradition of such manifestations. Local thunder-storms and heavy 

 raips, over comparatively limited districts, are experienced as detached 

 phenomena, but are apt to be incidents of a storm covering a large area, 

 and moving eastward. Days of comparative calm and or" gentle breezes 

 often occur, when, perhaps, for a week the wind-mill is unable to work 

 the pump at the water-station, but total rest of the atmosphere, except 

 for brief periods, is rare. The climate is propitious to health and to 

 comfort; for although changes of temperature are at times sudden and 

 ^ensiderable, yet injurious results seldom follow them. 



As we pass westward from the ninet^'-seventh meridian, the atmos- 

 phere is observed to be more arid. Within two hundred miles of the 

 mountains, the deposition of dew is at times so light as to be of little or 

 no service to the vegetation. The annual rain-fall is also less as we go 

 westward, decreasing nearly in the ratio of distance until the divide is 

 reached at and southwest from .Cedar Point, in which vicinity there is 

 sui^i^osed to be more rain than eastward in the i)lains or westward 



