American union. [volume] (Morgantown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1855-1859, 1857-08-07
snE GREAT WESTERN PLAINS.

D.. =
The recent steamboat arrivals at st.
Louis from Upper Missouri, give some
idea of the vast extent of country drain
ed by that mighty river and its tribu-
taries. One boat started where the
river was narrowed down to only suffi-
cient width to allow an ascending boat
to windin orderto change its direction,
and then followed downthe brpadering
stream for $500 miles until it mingles
its muddy waters with the Mississippi
and in sufficient volume to give color
and character to that great artery of
the continent, even when by many
mouths it is swallowed in the Gulf.
Colonel Galphin, who has we'll ex-
plored our Great Western Plains,
stretching from the frontier of Kansas
and the heart of Nebraskato to the Rocky
Mountains, in q letter to the ST. Lou
is Democrat graphically sketches their
characteristics. The plains occupy u
longitudinal parallclpgram ofnearly a
thousand miles III widrM and extending
from the Texan to the Arctic coast,
present an area equal to the twenty
four States east of the Mississippi. =
They have a slight slope from the west
to the east, and abound in rivers and
streams, which serve, like the Nile, to
irrigate rather than drain the neigh
boring surface, having few afiluents,
and running from west to cast in shall
low, broad beds, through long, fat, mar
row basins. They are destitute oftim.
Fer, even single trees being scarce, tho
thickly clad with nutritious grasses,
and swarming with animal life. Their
soil is chiefly a fine calcarcous mould,
admirably adapted for pasturage, and
good farming arabic land is found along
the banks of the river. -
Colonel Galphin describes the eli
mate to be, in many respects, like E.
gypt, rainless, favorable to longevity,
intellectual and physical development,
and stimulativc of high social civiliza-
tion. Storms are rare, except during
the melting Of snow upon the crest Of
the Rocky Mountains. These plains,
commonly regarded as deserts, ire
claimable, he declares swarming with
animal life; and he estimates the Buffa-
10 which find their living upon them at
twenty millions, and other wild amin.
ais at more than fifty millions, all OF
which subsst mainly upon the gramma
or buffalo grass which the dry atmos-
! phcre crisps into vetynutritious hay.
"A million of Indians have, until lately,
Bubsistcd altogether upon the game
which they furnished, and they are ca.
pable of sustaining an immense paste.
raj population. Six tepths of the food
of the human family, the Colonel
thinks, is, or ought to be animal, the
result of pastoral agriculture, and as
the Northwest is now the granary of
Che world, so, he maintains, will the Far
West, furnish its supplies of animal
food, consisting of meat, milk, butter,
cheese, poultry, eggs, wool and honey.
These plains, without a single abrupt
mountain, timbered space, desert or
lake, running smoothly out to the nav
igable Missouri, Mississippi, and ST.
Lawrence, and to the Texan coast, not
y portion of whose whole sweep Of SUR
face is more than q thousand miles from
the best navigation, must become the
pastoral garden of the world.
They are everywhere adapted to
sustain great pastoral population. -
Adobe bricks for dwellings, impervious
to heato or cold, can be made anywhere;
plaster, lime, clay, and sand, exist be,
meath every acre; bituminous coal is in
abundance, buffalo dung is scattered
everywhere, and wood fuel is found
plcntifully by digging, for the trees are
stunted by the dry atmosphere, while
the roots spread out in all directions.
Mr.. Galphin does not claim for these
vast plains the cardinal basis of the
future empire of commerce and indus.
try; but maintains, from their afnple
dimensions and positions, their climate,
abundance Of fuel, building material,
and animal life, that they ere not only
adapted to be the home Of millions 6f
happy frcemcn, but that they will be
"thc pasture-field Of the world