CLIMA TIC CHANGES IN THE PRAIRIE REGION. 309 



Geology proves that the Russian steppes, like our own great plains, were 

 never covered with trees, and, like the plains, were the homes of nomadic tribes 

 — the Scythians — who wandered over the prairies as the American Indian. In 

 climate, too, the steppes are similar to our own western regions, primarily fruitful 

 in intense drouths and fearful storms. 



Infinitely more inherently fertile than any region in Europe where forest cul- 

 ture has met with such success, the great American plains promise the most won- 

 derful results in timber growth, and a few years will effect the most marvelous 

 changes in their adaptability to the uses of man. The sandiest of deserts contain 

 abundant supplies of water under their areas usually, even where no evidences of 

 moisture are visible on their surfaces, and timber culture whenever extended in 

 these regions has definitely determined the question of their possibilities in that 

 direction favorably ; how much more may we expect on the prairies of the Far 

 West, whose whole surface is abundantly watered. 



On the west roast of Africa the dunes of sand are quite moist a short distance 

 below their exterior, and under the dunes of Algeria there is an abundance of 

 water. On rh^ Oreat Sahara the French find water at accessible depths. The 

 several Pacific railroads have experienced no difficulty in establishing permanent 

 wells along their lines wherever needed and at moderate depths, from which the 

 water is raised by means of the most simply constructed windmills. Underneath 

 nearly the entire area of the plains, at a distance of from ten to twelve feet, there 

 is a stratum of soil containing sufficient moisture to sustain tree growth, and into 

 this their rootlets strike and are nourished. 



Viewing the results of the efforts made in Europe in the artificial creation of 

 forests, it would appear that we need have no fears in this connection even for 

 the dreaded Llano Estacado, which approaches nearer in its physical aspect to a 

 desert than any other portion of our interior area, not excepting the Mauvaises 

 Terres of Dakota and Montana. 



General Pope thus describes the remarkable region of the Llano Estacado :* 



* * "Proceeding westward, the most desolate portions of the United 

 States, known as the Llano Estacado or Staked Plain — a treeless plateau elevated 

 four thousand feet above the sea, a hundred miles or more in breadth, and stretch- 

 ing from the Canadian to beyond the northern confines of Mexico, unbroken by a 

 single peak and underlaid by a nearly horizontal strata of red clay and gypsum. 

 It is without wood or water. For thirty miles of the Pecos the surface is hard and 

 covered with grama grass ; and from thence to a point about thirty miles west of 

 the Colorado of Texas, the hard surface alternates with patches of dark red sand, 

 covered with bunch grass. The Llano Estacado presents no inducements to cul- 

 tivation." 



This is the gloomy view taken of that portion of our country twenty-five 

 years ago, long before the idea was fully developed in Europe of redeeming 

 sterile and desert lands by the introduction of timber. When we compare the 

 Llano Estacado, with its carpet of grass, to the absolute deserts of Algeria and the 



* Pacific R. R. Survey, 1852. 



