EXTENSION OF THE PEAIRIE. 



337 



annual fires. In low places and in shallow depressions 

 where marshes are formed in spring, the soil is rich, much 

 mixed with vegetable matter, and supports a very luxuriant 

 growth of grass. If willows and aspens were permitted to 

 grow over the prairies, they would soon be converted into 

 humid tracts in which vegetable matter would accumulate 

 and a soil adapted to forest trees be formed. If a portion 

 of prairie escapes fire for two or three years the result is 

 seen in the growth of willows and aspens, first in patches, 

 then in large areas, which in a short time become united 

 and cover the country, thus retarding evaporation and 

 permitting the accumulation of vegetable matter in the 

 soil. A fire comes, destroys the young forest growth and 

 establishes a prairie once more. The reclamation of im- 

 mense areas is not beyond human power ; the extension of 

 the prairies is evidently due to fires, and the fires are 

 caused by Indians, chiefly for the purpose of telegraphic 

 communication, or to divert the buffalo from the course 

 they may be taking. These operations will cease as the 

 Indians and buffalo diminish, events which are taking place 

 with great rapidity. 



The extension of the prairie country must have exer- 

 cised a powerful influence upon the Indian population of 

 Eupert's Land. By the progressive limitation of their 

 hunting grounds during the winter season, hostile tribes 

 would possess greater opportunities of destroying one 

 another than when spread over the prairies. Migra- 

 tory bands of Indians dependent upon wild animals for 

 their support must diminish or increase with the area 

 over which their sustenance extends, and it is apparent 

 that the extension of absolutely treeless prairies and of 

 sterile soil, the formation of "Plains," in a word*, is un- 



* See the succeeding chapter for the distinction between Prairie and 

 Plain. 



VOL. I. Z 



