also covered with brushwood; and thus a grove has been formed which bids defiance to the fire.

It will be remembered that we have maintained that the earth was covered with grass, antecedently to the growth of trees. We admitted that on the margins of streams, upon mountains, and on broken grounds,—wherever, in short, the progress of the autumnal fires should be intercepted, either by the conformation, or the moisture, of the surface, timber would rapidly cover the ground, while at the same time we contended, that in the open plains grass would long continue to hold possession. We have given ample proof of the correctness of this theory, in reference to our western prairies; and we shall now show that it is probably true of other parts of the United States.

In the "Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania," we find an article entitled "Sketches of the early history of Byberry in the county of Philadelphia, by Isaac Comly," a worthy member of the Society of Friends, and a descendant of the companions of Penn. Byberry township lies in the north east end of the county of Philadelphia, distant from the city between thirteen and sixteen miles. The account is compiled from the most authentic sources, and reaches back to the first settlement of the country. The writer says, "Byberry was settled early after the arrival of William Penn. When the white people first came here, we are informed they found but few large trees standing, though plenty of saplings and underbrush; and in some places, particularly in Mooreland, the ground was covered with coarse grass, as high as a man's head." This is a very striking passage. It seems, that there were prairies in Philadelphia county! and that the ground was covered with coarse grass that grew as high as a man's head, answering precisely to the description of the prairie grass of the West. Other spots were destitute of large trees, but produced " plenty of saplings and underbrush,"-being in the state intermediate

between prairie and forest, and thus affording the strongest proof of the change which the country had then recently undergone,

In another volume of the transactions of the same society, we have "An account of the first settlement of the townships of Buckingham and Solesbury, in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, by Dr. Joseph Watson," a gentleman who died some few years ago, at an advanced age, and whose own recollections, with the accounts transmitted to him by his father and grandfather, the latter of whom came out with William Penn, supplied him with the most authentic information. Speaking of the employments of the first settlers, he says, "they cut grass in the plains, or swamps, often at several miles from home, stacked it up on the spot, and hauled it home in the winter." The counties of Bucks and Philadelphia, lie adjoining, if we mistake not, and occupy an extensive undulating plain on the margin of the Delaware; and we think that the evidence of the two writers, who state the facts above quoted, incidentally, without any view to the support of a theory, sufficiently proves the former existence of prairies in that region; while their non-existence within the memory of the present inhabitants, shews also the rapidity with which, after settlements are made, timber will cover the interjacent plains.

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The first settlers of Kentucky found large tracts of the country destitute of trees, and covered with bushes. Supposing that the want of timber was caused by the sterility of the soil, or some other circumstance unfriendly to vegetation, they gave to these spots, the expressive name of "the barrens," and carefully avoided them in making their selections of land. The barrens, were extensive plains, interspersed with hill and dale-not so level as the prairies, north and west of the Ohio, yet not broken by deep ravines, or abrupt ridges. It was soon discovered that the bushes were growing up into thrifty saplings;

and on farther examination the soil was found to be of good quality. The country was soon occupied, and now contains a large population; while forests of valuable timber are growing upon the soil, over which, within the memory of living witnesses, the hunter could see the deer bounding over the brush, as far as the eye could reach.

Trumbull in his "History of Connecticut," a work compiled with great care and labor, from the most authentic sources, speaks in various places of the practice of the early settlers, of cutting hay from the wild meadows: a phraseology which distinctly asserts the existence of plains, covered with grass, and destitute of timber. He also describes these natural meadows, and gives his own inferences as to their formation. He says,

"When the English became first acquainted with that tract, comprised within the settled part of Connecticut, it was a vast wilderness. There were no pleasant fields, nor gardens, no public roads, nor cleared plats. Except in places where the timber had been destroyed, and its growth prevented by frequent fires, the groves were thick and lofty. The Indians so often burned the country, to take deer and other wild game, that in many of the plain dry parts of it, there was but little small timber. Where the lands were thus burned, there grew bent grass, or, as some called it, thatch, two, three, and four feet high, ac cording to the strength of the land. This, with other combustible matter which the fields and groves produced, when dry in the spring and fall, burned with violence and killed all the small trees. The large ones escaped, and generally grew to a notable height and magnitude. In this manner the natives so thinned the groves, that they were able to plant their corn and obtain a crop."

This statement is undoubtedly accurate so far as the author has related the facts which came down to him; while so much as is the result of his own attempt at explanation is fallacious. There were plains, which were

annually burned, on which grass grew, and where the Indians raised corn. But corn never grew under the Whatever shade of large trees of "notable" growth. might have been true of other places, the spots on which the grass grew four feet high, and where corn was cultivated, must have been entirely exposed to the action of the sun.

Captain Smith, on the contrary, found the whole of Virginia covered with timber, and is careful to record that he saw no plains, "but only where the Salvages inhabit, but all overgrown with trees and weeds, being a plaine wildernesse as God first made it."

Captain Owen, of the British navy, in a late voyage to the coast of Africa, of which an interesting account has been published, describes a large tract of the interior which he explored, as "a low level country, with some knots of trees, like park land;" and from other allusions in the same book, we suppose that he often met with extensive plains of wild meadow, precisely similar to those of Illinois and Missouri. The fact may pass for what it is worth. We adduce it for the purpose of shewing that there is nothing in the character of our prairies so anomalous, or so contrary to the laws of nature, as is supposed by those who have been accustomed to see wild lands clothed with timber.

CHAPTER VII.

Soil of the Prairies-Explanations in regard to the want of timber.

Fanciful writers have divided the prairies into alluvial and rolling; but no such distinction exists in point of fact, or is tenable according to any received theory, or scientific deduction. The formation of the whole is so invariable in character, as to render it certain, that if any part is alluvial, the whole is equally so, nor do those plains which are rolling, as nearly all are, differ in soil from the remainder, so as to justify this sort of classification. The probability is that the whole western plain is diluvial, with the exception only of the bottom lands on the margins of rivers, which are alluvial, and of recent formation.

The levelness of the surface, the absence of stones, the light quality of the loam, with other indications, seem to establish the fact, that this vast plain is composed of the sediment, deposited at the universal deluge. Marine shells have been found in our prairies; at one place particularly, an immense mass of oyster shells lie deposited not far below the surface. Logs have been discovered, buried thirty or forty feet deep. Boulders, or detached masses of stone, are occasionally seen on the prairies, lying loosely on the ground, not only entirely separate from the limestone pan beneath, but differing from it in kind, They are obviously not meteoric; and it seems that they have been wrenched from their native beds, and brought to the places where they are now seen, by some great convulsion of nature. They are granite, and there is no spot at which that description of rock exists, and from which they could have been brought, nearer than the Allegheny, or the Rocky mountains, or the northern shores of the lakes. Yet they are numerously scattered throughout Illinois and Missouri.