Rocky Mountains. 887 



every part alike, as it undoubtedly occupies a very conside- 

 rable portion of the interior of North America. That a si- 

 milar desert region exists on the western side of the moun- 

 tains, we have sufficient evidence; but whether as uninter- 

 rupted and as extensive, we have not the means of deter- 

 mining. The Jesuit Venegas, speaking of the early history 

 of California, says, " Father Kino and his companions, 

 after travelling thirty leagues from San Marcelo, came to a 

 small rancheria, [Indian village,] and leaving on the north the 

 great mountain of Santa Clara, whose sides for the length of 

 a league are covered with pumice stone, they arrived at the 

 sandy -waste on the l9th of March."* Our information is 

 yet too limited to justify an attempt to fix the boundaries of 

 this desert — we therefore confine ourselves to the observa- 

 tions our opportunities have enabled us to make. 



The channel of the Missouri near the mouth of the Platte, 

 discloses, here and there rocks of horizontal limestone, which, 

 from their peculiar character we are disposed to consider as 

 belonging rather to the Ozarks, than having any direct con- 

 nexion with the Rocky Mountains. These rocks appear at 

 the lowest parts of the vallies. and are usually surmounted 

 by extensive beds of soil, consisting principally of sand, in 

 the most minute state of division, but intermixed with re- 

 mains of organized beings, and sometimes with calcareous 

 and aluminous earth. Proceeding westward, the sand be- 

 comes deeper and more unmixed; not a rock or a stone in 

 place, or out of place, is to be met with, for some hundreds 

 of miles. It is believed no rocky bluffs appear along the val- 

 ley of the Platte, within three hundred miles of its mouth, 

 though a small part of this distance on the lower portion of 

 the river has not been explored. The surface of this sandy 

 waste is not an absolute plain, but varied with gentle un- 

 dulations, such as the draining of water for a succession of 

 centuries, from an immense table of light arenaceous earth, 

 may be supposed to have occasioned. The gradual in- 

 termixture of the exuviae of animals and vegetables, with 

 what was formerly a pure silicious sand, has at length pro- 

 duced a soil capable of supporting a scanty growth of grass- 

 es, now almost the only. covering of these desolate regions. 



About four hundred miles west of the mouth of the Platte, 

 a low range of sandstone hills crosses the country from south- 

 west to northeast. The strata forming these hills have ne 



* Venegas' History of California, vol. i, p. 305, Lond. 1759, 



