Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-07-16
6Qurtestrr Daily Spp.
GREELEYs OVERLAND JOURNEY.
THE PLAINs-THE MOUNTAINS.

tween the region which stretches hundreds of
miles eastward from this spot toward Missouri,
and is known as Tile Plans, and that which
overlooks us on the West: and, by its alb
rupt and sharp-ridged foot hills seeming just
at hand, and its glittering peaks OF snow i'll the
blue distance, vindicateS its current deslgna-
ton, Tile Mountains. Let us elucdate.
The plains are nearly destitute Of human
inhabitants. Aside from the buffalo range
which has been steadily narrowing ever since
Daniel, Boone made his home in Kentucky,
and is now hardly two hundred miles wide-it
affords little sustenance and less shelter to man.
The antelope are seldom seen in herds-three
is the highest number | have seen together,
while one, or at most two is more common.
One to each mile square would be large esti-
mate for all that exists on the plains. Elk are
scarcely seen at all, even where they have
hardly ever been hunted or scared. OF deer
there are none, or next to none. For the plains
are the tavorite haunt of beasts and birds of
prey--of the ravenous and fearless grey wolf,
of the coyote, the raven and the hawk-the
first hanging on the TANKS of every great herd
of buffalo, ready to waylay any foolish calf or
needless heiter that may chance to stray for
water or fresher grass beyond the protection of
the hard-headed and chivalrous patriarch, be-
hind whose vigilant ranks there is compare
tive safety, and counting as their property any
bull, even, whom wounds or disease or decrep-
itude shall compel to fall behind in the perpet-
ual march, For, while strange buffalo, or
two, or three, may linger in some lonely val
ley for months-for all winter, perlaps-the
great herds which blacken the earth for miles
in extent cannot afford to do so--they are so
immensely numerous, and find their safety in
travelling so compactly that they must keep
moving or starve. Avoiding, so far as posi-
ble the wooded ravines of the slender water
courses, where experience has taught them to
flT,l +1,x,l
dian, they keep to the high divides or only
feed in the valleys while they have these well
covered by sentinel bulls to give warning of
any foes approach Take away the buffalo
and the plains will be desolate far beyond their
present desolation; and | cannot but regard
with sadness the inevitable and not distant
fate of these noble and Harmless brutes, already
crowded into breadth of country too narrow
for them, and continually hunted, slaughtered,
decimated, by the wolf, the Indian, the white
man. They could have stood their ground
against all in the absence of fire arms, but
"vilainous saltpeter" is too much for them.
They are bound to perish; | trust it may be
rather by sudden shot than by slow starvation.
Wood and water-the prime necessities of
the traveller as of the settler-are in adequate
though not abundant supply for a hundred
miles or more on this as they are throughout
on the other side of the buffalo range at
length they gradually fail, and we are in a
desert indeed. No spring. no brook, for dis
lance OF thirty to sixty miles (which would be
stretched to more than a hundred if the few
tracks called roads were not at all run so as to
secure water so far as possibe) rivers which
have each had fifty to hundred miles of its
course gradually parched up by force of sun
and wind, and its waters lost in their own
sands, so that the weary, dusty traveller vainly
digs for hours in their dry beds in quest of
water for his thirsty cattle--rivers which dare
not rise again till some friendly brook, having
its source in some specially favored region,
pours in its small but steady tribute, moistens
the sands of the river bed, and encourages its
waters to rise to the surface again In one
case, an emigrant assures me that he dug down
to the bed rock of one of these rivers, yet
found all sand.
| know that / can satisfactorily account,
even to myself, for the destitution of wood
which the Plains everywhere present. espe-
cialy the western part of them. The poverty
of the soil will not suffice, for these lands,
when sufficiently moistened by rain or thaw.
ing snow-drifts, produce grass, and are not so
sterile as the rocky hills, the pebby knobs of
New England, which nevertheless produce
wool rapidly and abundantly. On the prairies
of Illinois, Missouri and civilized Kansas, the
absence of wood is readily accounted for by
the annual fires which, in Autumn or Spring,
sweep over nearly half of the dead grass, kill
ing every tree-sprout that may have started
up from scattered seeds and roots running
from the timber in the adjacent ravine beneath
the matted grass. But here are thousands of
acres too poorly grassed to be swept by the
annual fires--on which the thinly scattered
reed-stalks and bunch-gras of last year shake
dryly in the fierce night winds-yet not tree
nor shrub relieves the tameness the barren
ess, the desolation of thousands after thous-
ands of acres-not twig, scion, gives
promise of trees that are to be- For time
the narrow ravine or lowest intervals of the
frequent streams were fairly timbered with
Cottonwood and low, sprawling elm, with a
very little oak or white ash at long intervals
intermixed but these grew gradually thinner
and feebler, until nothing but few small cot
tonwoods remained, and these skulking behind
bluffs and or in sheltered hollows at intervals
of twenty to forty miles. Once in ten or
twenty miles, a bunch Of dwarf willows, per-
haps two feet high would be found covering
in some petty basin washed out by a current of
water many years ago; but these, like the
cottonwoods, are happy if able to hold their
own; indeed, have seen much evidence that
wood was more abundant on the Plains hun
dred years ago than it now is Dead cotton
woods of generous proportions lie in the chan
nels of dry brooks on which no tree nor shrub
now grows and at one or more stations of
the express company near the sink Of the Re-
publican lHeg uilu uedu pine SlSHl ulllCS up d
creek, where no live pine has been seen for
generations. | judge that the desert is steadi-
ly increasing its borders and at the same time
intensifyng its barrenness
The fierce drought that usually prevails
throughout the Summer, doubtless contributes
to this, but think the violent and all but con-
slant winds evince still more disastrous po-
tency. High winds are of frequent, all bun
daily, occurrence here, within dozen miles of
the great protractng buwark of the Rocky
Mountains, while, from a point fifty miles
eastward of this, they sweep over the Plains
almost constantly, and at times with resistless
fury. A driver stated on our way up, with
every appearance Of sincerity, that he had
known instances of tires being blown of from
wagon-wheels by the tornadoes of the Plains !;
and hard to swallow as it may seem L have
other and reliable assurances that, when the
Missourans' camp on the express road was
swept by hurricane, five or six weeks ago,
so that, after the the wreck, but three decent
wagons could be patched up out of their SIX, as
| have already narrated one Of the wheel
tires was found not only blown off but nearly
Strengthened out There is most always a
good breeze at midday and after, on the
Plains, but, should none be felt through the
day, one is almost certain to spring up at sun
set, and blow fercely through the night.
Thus, though hot days, or parts of days, are
frequent ON the Plains, i have experienced
not even moderately warm night And thus
trees are not; mainly because winds up
root and dismember them, or so rock and
wrench them while young that their roots can
not suck up even the little nourishment that
this soil of baking clay resting on porous, and
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