

162 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
GEOLOGY. 
THE PLAINS or Kawsas.— Six companies of the 10th U. S. cavalry 
marched from Fort Riley, Kansas, on the 15th of April, 1868, under orders 
to encamp for the summer near Fort Wallace. The route is along the line 
of the Union Pacific Railroad, eastern division, which is now completed to 
be thirty miles of Fort Wallace. This is known as the Smoky Hill 
R te s very generally I that the plains are level prairies ee those 
of Illinois; but this is not so. By the plains, frontiersmen th 
. country wise of the s RR to the base of the Rocky Mois 
Along the line of the Smoky Hill River, the country is rolling and con- 
with the Republican, and two hundred miles from the Missouri River. 
The soil in the river valley is deep and rich, as is also that of the nu- 
merous creeks flowing into it. The bluffs are mostly unsuited for cultiva- . 
tion, being formed of gravel and clay, covered with a soil but a few inches 
thick. The buffalo grass, with which the high ground is covered, does 
ot grow more than three or four inches high, but is very sweet and nu- 
comes covered and shaded by grasses of more luxuriant growth, and as 
fited, and there will be a more equitable fall of rain throughout the year. 
Very little rain falls from July to March, and a large proportion of that is 
carried off within a few etel by the numerous creeks, which are dry at 
other times in the dry seaso 
Timber is only found on re plains along creeks and in ravines, where 
it is protected from prairie fires by the abrupt banks which are bare of 
grass in consequence of the constant falling away of the earth along their 
steep sides. The principal varieties of timber about Fort Harker are 
will Ti you go westw 
until eihar the iaaii, where it TIREN quite abundant, pine 
and cedar taking the place of oak and other hard wood. 
One of n earliest flowers is the Prairie-pea (Astragalus Mexicanus): 
The fruit is about the size of a green gage plum, and is very abundant, 
m fleshy bod being the part eaten. It tastes like the pod of the common 
a, but when cooked is insipid and rarely eaten. A wild Hyacinth is 
ania in the lowlands, and the Poppy-mallow (Malva Papaver), which 4 
little later im the season is found in extensive beds, with its purple blos- 
soms and dark green leaves, forms one of the most brilliant figures in the 
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