Bellevue gazette. [volume] (Bellevue City, N.T. [i.e. Neb.]) 1856-1858, 1857-08-06
The Great western Plains.

Il
Col. Galphin, who has well explored
our great western plains, stretching from
the frontier of Kansas and the heart of
Nebraska TO the Rocky Mountains, in q
letter to the ST. Louis Democrat, graphic
ally sketches their characteristics. Tho
Plains occupy a longitudinal parallelogram
of nearly thousand miles in widh, and
extending from the Texan to the Arctic
coast. present an area equal to the TWEEN.
ty-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 rath-
er than drain the neighboring surface,
having few afiluenis and running from
west to east, in shallow, broad beds,
through long, fiat, narrow basins. They
are destitute of timber, even single trees
being scarce, though thick clad with nu-
tricious grasses and swarming with AMI
NAL life. Their soil is chiefly a fine cal-
careous mould, admirably adapted for pas
turage, and good farming arabic land is
found along the banks of the rivers. q
Col. G.. describes the climate to be, in
many respects, like Egypt, rainless, favor.
able 10 longevity, intellectual and social
development, and stimuative of a high
social civilization. Storms are rare, ex.
cept during the melting of snow upon the
crest of the Rocky Mountains. These
plains, commonly regarded as deserts, un-
reclaimable, he declares swarm with ami
NAL life and he estimates the buffalo
which find their living upon them at twen-
ty millions, and other wild ANIMALS at more
than fifty millions. all of which subsist
mainly upon the gramma, or buffalo grass,
which the dry atmosphere crisps into
highly nutricious hay.
A million of Indians have, until lately,
subsisted altogether upon the game which
they furnished, and they are capable of
sustaining an immense pastoral popula-
tion. Sixth.tenths of the food Of the hu.
man family, the Colonel thinks, Is 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, con-
sisting Of meat, milk, butter, cheese,
poultry, eggs, wool and honey. 'i'H
These plains, without single abrupt
mountain, timbered space, desert or lake,
running smoothly out TO the navigable
Missouri, Mississippi, and ST. Lawrence,
and 10 the Texan coast, not q portion Of
whose whole sweep of surface is more
than thousand miles from the best nayi.
CATION, must become the pastoral garden
of the world,
They are everywhere adapted to sus-
tain great pastoral population. Adobe
bricks for dwellings, impervious to hest or
cold, can be made anywhere; plaster,
lime, clay, and sand, exist beneath nearly
every acre; bituminous coal is abundant,
buffalo dung is scattered everywhere, and
wood fuel is found plentifully by digging,
for the trees are stunted by the dry atmos.
phere, where the roots spread out in all
directions.
Mr.. Galphin does not claim for these
gast plains the cardinal basis Of the future
empire Of commerce and industry; but
maintains from their ample dimensions
and positions, their climate, abundance Of
iuel, building material and animal life,
hat they are not only adapted to be the
home Of millions of happy fresmen. bu.
hat they will be "i The pas,ure field Of the
world" s-f