The Wyandot pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1853-1868, 1857-07-16
The Great western Plains.


Louis from Upper Missouri, give some
idea of the vast extent of country drained
by that mighty river and its tributaries
One boat started where the river was mar
rowed down to only sufficient width to al
low an ascending boat to wind in order to
change its direction, and then followed
down the broadening stream for $500
milesSuntil it mingles it's muddy waters
with the Mississippi, and in sufficient vol
ume to give color and character to that
great artery Of the Continent, even when
by many mouths it is swallowed in the
Gulf.
Col. Galphin, who has we'll explored
our Great Western Plains, stretching
from the frontier of Kansas ard the heart
of Nebraska to the Rocky Mountains, in
a letter to the st. Louis Democrat graph
ically sketches their characteristics. The
Plains occupy longitudinal parallelo-
gram of nearly a thousand miles in width,
and extending from the Texan to the Artic
coast, present an area equal to the TWEEN
ty-four States east of the Mississippi. They
have 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 neighboring surface,
having few aff1uents, and running from
west to east in shallow, broad beds,
through long, flat, narrow basins. They
are destitute of timber, even single trees
being scarce, though thick clad with nu-
trclous grasses, and swarming with ami
mallife Their soil is chiefly fine cal
careous mould, admirably adapted for
pasturage,. and good farming arabic land
is found along the banks of the rivers.
Col. G. describes the climate to be, in
many respects, like Egypt, rainless, favor
able to longevity, intellectual and physi-
cal aldevelopment, and stimulatiye Of high
social ciyilization.-Storms are rare, ex-
cept during the melting ofsnow upon the
Rocky Mountains These plains, COM
monty regarded as deserts, unreclaimable,
he declares swarm with animal life; and
he estimates the Buffalo which find their
living upon them at them at twenty mil
ton, and other wild animals at more than
| fifty millions. all Of which subsists mainly
upon the gramma ar buffalo grass, which
the dryness of the atmosphere crisps into
a highly nutricious hay. 4 million of In
dams have, until lately, snbsisted alto
gether upon the game which they fur
nished, and they are capable of sustaining
an immense pastoral population. Six
tenths Of the food of the human family,
the Col. thinks is, or ought to be, animal,
the result of pastoral agriculture; and as
the North West is now the granary of
the 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 single abrupt
mountain, timbered space, desert or lake,
running smoothely out of the navigable
Missouri, Mississippi and st. Lawrence,
and to the Texan coast, not a portion of
whose whole sweep of surface is more
than a thousand miles form the best nav
igation, must become the pastoral garden
of the world.
They are everywhere adapted to sus-
tain great pastoral population. Adobe
bricks for dwellings,, impervious TO heat
or cold. can be made anywhere; plaster,
lime, clay and sand, exists beneath near
ly every acre; bituminous coal is abun-
dant, buffalo dung is scattered every
where, and wood fuel is found plentifully
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 commefce and industry; but
maintains from their ample dimensions
and positions, their climate. abundance Of
fuel, building material and animal life,
that they are not only adapted to be the
home of millions of happy freemen, but
that they will be "the pasture field of the
| world
Among the noteworthy incidents of the