The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1899-01-04
FIRES ON THE PRAIRIE.
Nothing in Mature Equal Them.
Demver Letter ss Ne,U York Sun.

u fbe fires tha' 'o0"y
iDv ~. IN northern Michigan and
= ', s'o,.;o. other recent fires thai
4 !, across areas Of prairie lands ia
PIX ;,oba and North Dakota and still
r., eres that burned over sqpart
,. -. among The Roxy Mouutsin,
i III :. rer;yed train Jf "reminiscences
~, the old-tine plainamen out
~ T. vay concerning their own expert
'.,s 10 great prairie fires two 0,
E IT,. DECADES ago. One who has
) I -, seeu a prairie ere such as used
.fsll 70 dcyastaie tie plains from
i. Missouri river to the Rocky
.,,,,ius and from The Rio Grande
a c.n raj British America can have
4 ;de. what such enormous coDfagra-
,,s we're. M one has yet adequate
q described the frigh,ful solemuity,
,raudeur and the awfuiness Of a
Il lurid flames, tens Of thousands
s ceres broad, rolling, ssiug aud
!,bipg forward like an 'Draged IL
!,;e monster and leaving in the trail
s.kipg AMI smoking ruins from hor-
I. To horizon. Mark Twain has said
4, ,he most colossal, awing thing in
q nature is great fire on the plains,
II AZ be saw in Nebraska ia the fall
4lO6O.
Prairie fires with solid walls Of
ines twenty FIVE and -thirty.five feet
s, extending ten and Eors asifos as
81 s. Wind might be blowing, have been
puou. Descriptive, wfiters :. and
i,,s have We'd with one another in
3lefor. 10 depict the sensations chat
ss.eoue who locks upon.a sweep.
roaring prairie fire, but all efforts
s failed. The burning Of Moscow
81 the conaagration at Chicago have
s9laiaucifully pictured in so1g, aaa
# y, but it has remained for ehe
ID sasage Of the plaino.to sask with
D degree Of Adequacy ~ of thp prai,
Ere. "It is, says he, s'the spiris
fs, who in anger has drawn his
;.5 OF flames across che path OF the
man, ,.
b laue part Of the prairie is now
ken ap by settlements that the
hare lost much Of their time
snt grandeur, but the very fact
she settlement makes the danger
rAsty and life tie greater. When
n euntr5, from the Gulf OF Mexiu /,
ben ut'.ern boundary OF the United
ss, and even beyond, was almost
s4led, q great FIRE could sweep al
from one end Of il TO the other
DO no damage except to the game
light overtake in itS mad chase.
HA settlement the danger TO man
ns, and as long as there are any
ST iderable stretches Of prairie there
Slrays danger unless the farm
=A@HiOgs and villages are carefeiIy
ided with FIRE breaks.
zA 1874 some hunters started . a
pie fire in Bon Homme county,
Pta territory, opposite 7Niobrara,
81 There was strong southwest
and it swept to the northwest
yer 300 miles, licking up tho dry
~ be grass and rolling up great vol
| Of smoke on the soft September
Tor upward Of a week. Thissene
onpara,ively narrow, being ig:Gspt
M spreading to the westward by tde
0ut river, and from making much
fess to the eas. 2. 9sst by the
Ver ano later by the wind, which
Ed more to the east; but in some
'' the tract burned over reached
sh OF seventy.five miles, and it
eed perhaps fifty
E81 81ouDd few streams to impede It's
ess on that side Of the Missouri;
lew it did encounter,s it had 10
ly In leaping. Indeed the dis
aFe will jump in crossing thepe
streams, where the grassfgrows
ad tall to the very waters edge,
almost past belief. In casJ a
z4g gI'not pass in one place there is
place where it can, and so it
on, frequently leaving large,
ueo' irregular shaped places
~ |s3 '0e streams Or lakes. but leaving
@ antry black, barren and forbid
nre took over week to go
more than 200 miles. This
tem slow, but several, things
III So taken into consideration. In
p'aces the grass was short,
I,eeeessarily ,e, hindefed ita pro.
m There was little or, no wind
the night, 90 III df course,
slowly then. At9ther times,
got among stretches Of blue
other tall grass, it, like ans
prairie fire, travelled at5 such a