The prairie seems to be an endless succession of rolls, with a smooth, green surface, dotted all over with most beautiful flowers. The soil is of the most rich and fertile character, with no waste land. The feelings that come over a person, as he first views this immense ocean of land, are indescribable. As far as the eye can reach, he sees nothing but a beautiful green carpet, save here and there perhaps a cluster of trees; he hears nothing but the feathered songsters of the air, and feels nothing but a solemn awe in view of this infinite display of creative power.

"13th. Turned out this morning at four o'clock, to watch the cattle. Went upon a high roll of land, where I had an extensive and enchanting view of this seemingly boundless and ever varying prairie. The sun is rising out of this sea of land in the east, a line of timber skirts Cedar Creek to the N. E., also Spoon Creek to the N. W., while still further on, in the same direction, is seen a thick fog, marking the course of the Kanzas river. All is still save the grazing of the cattle, and the concert of birds, which is composed of a great variety of songsters. The cooing of the prairie hens, heard in every direction, constitutes the base; the loud cawing of the crows, the tenor; the fine sweet voices of the ground and small birds, the treble; and a noise as of distant wild geese, the alto.

"23rd.

Passed a beautiful little creek of pure cold water, about twelve M., where we found a newly-made grave. Ascended a high bluff near the creek, where I had

a most delightful view of the country to a great distance. I was reminded of the view of the Connecticut river valley from Mt. Holyoke. There is this difference, however: while one is circumscribed by hill and forests, the other is illimitable in extent, and stretches from the rising to the setting sun; and while one is striped and checked with cornfields and meadows like a carpet, the other is capable of being checked as numerously with states and nations.”

The character of the Kanzas river itself has been indicated in some of these notices of journeys along its shores. The western boundary of Missouri, by the act establishing it in 1820, is fixed as the meridian of longitude which intersects the Missouri river at the entrance of the Kanzas. Of course, therefore, the point of land between the Kanzas and the Missouri is in the territory of Kanzas. It is frequently represented, even in official maps, as if it belonged in Missouri. It is the chief station of the Wyandot tribe, whose governor, Mr. Walker, resides there, as his brothers do. Their church, also, is on this point of land. Kanzas city is opposite in Missouri, just east of the state line. It has two advantages which give its inhabitants great hopes that it will become a great commercial city. One of these is its "landing." The river shore is here stone, so that the landing is in no danger of washing away by inundations, an evil to which most of the cities on the Missouri are exposed. The other is that the town has been selected as the present western terminus of the "Pacific Railroad,"

incorporated by the State of Missouri, and now under contract. The line of this road leaves the Missouri river at Jefferson City, and does not approach it again till it strikes at Kanzas.

From this point to Republican Fork the Kanzas river is free from interruption, and navigable except when the water is very low, as it is through part of the summer. By Lewis and Clarke's measurement it was three hundred and forty yards wide at its mouth. It is wider above, and seldom fordable. A steamboat carried up the supplies needed for the building of Fort Riley, the new government post at the mouth of Republican Fork.

This post was well selected, and the neighborhood will become important. The Republican Fork is navigable farther up, but no explorations have been made public to show how far. The Republican Fork takes its name from the Republican Pawnees, who formerly lived in its vicinity.

In 1844, Col. Fremont descended the valley of the Republican Fork and Kanzas. The following are his notes of the country as he saw it then.

Agreeably to your instructions, which required me to complete, as far as practicable, our examinations of the Kanzas, I left, at twenty miles below Bent's Fort, the Arkansas river, taking a north-easterly direction across the elevated dividing grounds which separate that river from the waters of the Nebraska. On the 7th of July we crossed a large stream, about forty yards wide, and one or two feet

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deep, flowing with a lively current on a sandy bed. The discolored and muddy appearance of the water indicated that it proceeded from recent rains, and we are inclined to consider this a branch of the Smoky Hill river, although possibly it may be the Pawnee Fork of the Arkansas. Beyond this stream we travelled over high and level prairies, halting at small ponds and holes of water, and using for our fires the bois de vache, the country being without timber. On the evening of the 8th we encamped in a cotton-wood grove on the banks of a sandy stream bed, where there was water in holes sufficient for the camp. Here several hollows or dry creeks, with sandy beds, met together, forming the head of a stream which afterwards proved to be the Smoky Hill Fork of the Kanzas river.

"As we travelled down the valley, water gathered rapidly in the sandy bed from many little tributaries, and at evening it had become a handsome stream, fifty to eighty feet in width, with a lively current in small channels, the water being principally dispersed among quicksands.

"Gradually enlarging, in a few days' march it became a river eighty yards in breadth, wooded with occasional grovės of cotton-wood. Our road was generally over level uplands bordering the river, which were closely covered with a sward of buffalo-grass.

"The country through which we had been travelling since leaving the Arkansas river, for a distance of two hundred and sixty miles, presented to the eye only a succession

of far-stretching prairies, covered with the unbroken verdure of the buffalo-grass, and sparingly wooded along the streams with straggling trees and occasional groves of cotton-wood; but here the country began perceptibly to change its character, becoming a more fertile, wooded and beautiful region, covered with a profusion of grasses, and watered with innumerable little streams, which were wooded with oak, large elms, and the usual varieties of timber common to the lower course of the Kanzas river.

"As we advanced, the country steadily improved, gradually assimilating itself in appearance to the north-western part of the State of Missouri. The beautiful sward of the buffalo-grass, which is regarded as the best and most nutritious found on the prairies, appeared now only in patches, being replaced by a longer and coarser grass, which covered the face of the country luxuriantly. The difference in the character of the grasses became suddenly evident in the weakened condition of our animals, which began sensibly to fail as soon as we quitted the buffalo-grass.

"The river preserved a uniform breadth of eighty or a hundred yards, with broad bottoms continuously timbered with large cotton-wood trees, among which were interspersed a few other varieties."

In the extracts already made from Col. Fremont and Col. Emory, their notes on the geology of the sections they passed have appeared. The bituminous coal of the Missouri coal measures appears in numerous places in the eastern

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