PEAIRIES" AND " PLAINS." 



349 



small aspens very rarely exceeding six inches in diameter 

 or twenty-five in altitude, and most frequently distributed 

 in detached groves, " bluffs," or belts. The same remark 

 applies to the use of the word " prairie," and to prairie 

 country ; prairies may be level, rich and dry, sustaining 

 luxuriant grasses and affording splendid pasturage ; they 

 maybe marshy and wet, or undulating — " stony," " sandy," 

 or " salt." Such indefinite terms as " open prairie," " rol- 

 ling prairie," " alluvial prairie," not unfrequently employed 

 in describing without limit as to space, the vast unpeopled 

 wastes, — often beautiful and rich, often desolate and bar- 

 ren, — of the Prairies and Plains of America, are some- 

 times both physically and geologically wrong, and serve 

 to convey the impression that the large areas to which 

 they are applied possess, if not a fertile, at least not an 

 unkindly soil, or an arid climate, rendering husbandry 

 hopeless. 



The difference between " Prairies " and " Plains " will 

 be best shown by describing their limits in the United 

 States and Eupert's Land. In the United States the true 

 Prairie region extends " over the eastern part of Ohio, 

 Indiana, the southern portion of Michigan, the southern 

 part of Wisconsin, nearly the whole of the States of Illi- 

 nois and Iowa, and the northern portion of Missouri, 

 gradually passing, in the territories of Kansas and Ne- 

 braska, into the Plains, or the arid and desert region 

 which lies at the base of the Eocky Mountains. This 

 passage takes place in the region between the me- 

 ridians of 97° and 100°, west of which belt the country 

 becomes too barren to be inhabited and worthless for 

 cultivation. The passage from the heavily wooded region 

 of the north and east into the treeless plains of the west 

 is a gradual one, and the disappearance of the under- 

 wood and the predominance of " oak openings," or groves 



