SOIL, ETC., OF KANZAS. 83 the Kanzas, and travelling on the Santa Fé trail, it is bounded by Council Grove. Within a belt of one hundred yards in width, from the northern to the southern boundary of the territory, the observer will find two distinct soils, marking the first and second districts. The hundred yard belt is not a right line from north to south, but is serpentine, and with a general direction north and south. "The second district presents to the eye a surface apparently of sand, but it must be impregnated largely with nutritive properties, for it is covered with grasses and rushes. In the valleys and hollows, where the soil is moist, the grass is abundant during the whole season; but upon the ridges it becomes stunted in June and July, and dry enough to burn after the middle of September. This district is essentially a pastoral region. There is no timber upon it, and not trees enough to serve as fire-wood for any great length of time. The only trees to be found at all are in the valley of the Kanzas, and they are chiefly cottonwood and willow. It is wholly unfit for agricultural purposes, and must remain so forever. Its geological structure is a sufficient indication of this fact. This district, from Sandy Creek, extends westward to a north and south line a few miles east of Fort Laramie, say about three hundred and fifty miles. "The third district is a formation of marl and earthy limestone, and is a continuation southward of a similar district described in my former letter as existing in Nebraska. It is in this district that what are termed buttes most frequently occur. These buttes are elevations varying in width from a hundred feet to several hundred yards. They are not knolls or hills. Their surfaces are flat, and their sides are nearly perpendicular. They can be likened to nothing but the trap-doors on the stages of theatres when elevated above the floors. It seems as if the general surface had suddenly sunk down, leaving them scattered all over the plains. I have never heard a plausible guess made touching the causes of their existence, and imagine that geologists will be much troubled to account for them. It is of this formation that what are called by the traders, in consequence of a fancied resemblance to these objects, the Court-House, the Cathedral, and the Chimneys — noted objects on the road to Oregon and California- are made. This is, however, only a narrow, irregular belt, and is succeeded by a fourth district, intervening between it and the Black Hills. It is very fertile, and admirably adapted to grain and vegetables. It is wholly destitute of timber. "The fourth district is somewhat similar to the first, at least along the base of the Black Hills, where it has been enriched for ages by the debris. There is more wood upon it than in the last named, because the small affluents of the great streams are more numerous along the base of the Black Hills than anywhere else. The eastern portion of it is pastoral, like the second district; but the western portion, skirting the hills, consists of a broad bank of fertile SOIL, ETC., OF KANZAS. 85 soil, finely timbered and watered, and abounding in game, wild fruits and flowers. It is one of the most lovely and desirable regions upon the continent. "The fifth district is the space between the Black Hills and the main chain of the Rocky Mountains. Here nature has presented us with every variety of aspect and soil. There are stupendous mountains, the grandeur and sublimity of which create mingled emotions of awe and terror. There are beautiful valleys, embosomed by amphitheatres of hills, where Calypso and her nymphs might have delighted to ramble, variegated by hill and dale, traversed by sparkling rivulets, and adorned with placid lakes. Fruits and flowers spangle the greensward; vines hang in festoons from tree to tree; cascades spring in rainbow hues from the cliffs; pines and cedars, the growth of ages, spread their sombre shade upon the mountain-sides, and the stupendous peaks, shooting up into the skies, are crowned with a glittering coronet of snow. A few hours' travel leads us out of this scene of primeval beauty into one in intense contrast with it. Here we find a sterile expanse of many miles in extent, covered with waving lines of sand, producing only stunted artemisia and a few other miserable plants; the rivulets are lost as they descend from the bare ridges around their hollow murmurs may be heard beneath the feet; and the surrounding peaks are immense piles of bare granite, which seem to have been thrown, by some great convulsion, into inextricable confusion. Small settlements will, in the progress of time, be made in the rich valleys, and they will be happy little communities. "The Republican and the Smoky Hill Forks take their rise in the Rocky Mountains, and unite to form the Kanzas river in about latitude 39° and longitude 96°. It flows thence in a general course eastward, to its mouth, in latitude 39° and longitude 94°. The upper portions of its two great forks are timbered with poplar, cedar, pine and other trees of mountain origin; thence to the eastern line of the first district I have described, the growth is cotton-wood, willow and other smaller shrubs; and across the first district to the Missouri line, the growth is hickory, ash, walnut, oak and sugar-maple. The valley of the Kanzas is not over twenty to forty miles broad in the first district; it becomes narrower as the stream is ascended. It is a deep alluvion, and wonderfully productive in grain and vegetables. Flocks and herds must for- "The tributaries of the Kanzas are not numerous, and their valleys are narrow. The only portions which can be occupied now for agricultural purposes are the first district and the valley of the Kanzas. ever occupy the second district. toral, until the means of supplying it with fuel can be created. The fourth will be, in the course of time, partly agricultural and partly pastoral, and the like may be said of the fifth. "The first district has a limestone basis; the second is underlaid by sandstone; the basis of the third is not known, NORTH-EASTERN KANZAS. 87 nor is that of the fourth and fifth determined with any reliable accuracy. The great coal-fields of Missouri, south of the Missouri, extend thirty or forty miles into Kanzas. I incline to the belief that detached or fragmentary coal will be found in much abundance in the north-eastern corner of the territory. In the fourth and fifth districts there is doubtless an abundance of it, besides water-power superior to any in the world." Of the geological character of the north-eastern part of Kanzas, and the neighboring section of Nebraska, Prof. James writes: "The country between the Kanzas and Platte is drained principally by Wolf river and the great Nemaha. These rivers, like the Nodowa and Nishnebottona, which enter the Missouri nearly opposite them, from the north-east, rise in the prairies, at an elevation, probably, of forty or fifty feet above the level of the Missouri. As they descend, their valleys, becoming gradually wider, embosom a few trees, and at length, near their entrance into the Missouri valley, are forests of considerable extent. The surface of these prairies presents a constant succession of small rounded hills, becoming larger and more abrupt as you approach the beds of the rivers. The soil is deep, reposing usually on horizontal beds of argillaceous sandstone and secondary limestone. In all the limestones along the Missouri, we observe a tendency to crystalline structure, and they have often a reddish or yellowish-white color. There is, however, something in the |
