Show arout fr the new loik tobun Tt 1 rolline bun au an Overl overland asid alie plains the devera DE VERp june 18 1859 I 1 know few greater contrasts than that beav between een the regi region oil w winch b ich stretches hundreds of f miles eastward east waid from this thia spot toward the M missouri and add is 13 known as the Pl clams aills and that which aich overlooks us on oil the west and like by its abrupt arid and sharp ridged toot foot hills teeming seeming lusi jus t at hand and its glittering peaks f snow in the blue distance vindicates its current designation the Mount ilius let us elucidate the plains are nearly destitute of human inhabitants As aside de from the buffalo range has been steadily narrowing ever stice daniel boone made his home lit in kentucky arid and is now hardly two hundred miles wide it affords little sustenance a and nd less shelter to man alan the antelope are seldom seen in herds illi re IS the highest eibest number I 1 observed to geiber ge her uble hi e ole ot e or at most two is is more common one to each mile square would be a large estimate esti binate for all that exists on the plains elk are scarcely seen at all even ei en fitere they have bae hardly ever been hunted or ta scared cared of deer there are none done or next to none ilone for tile the plains lains are the favorite haunt at beasts and birds bad P of prey of the ravenous and fearless gray wolf of the coyote the saven or the hawk the first hanging on the flanks dacks of every great heard of af buffalo ready to waylay any too lidi calf or heedless letter heiter glia chance to stray for water or fresh ter t grass beyond the protection of the hard leaded and chivalrous patri patriarchs aichs archs behind whose hose vigilant ranks there here t is compan tive safety and cou counting biting as their property any tull e even en whom wo wounds ands or disease or de i cripi tude shall compel to fall behind in in the perpetual perpetual march marca for while a stray buffa ao 0 or two or three way may linger in some lonely y valley for months for all avi winter anter per to ps the great herds which blacken the earth for miles milea in in extent afford to do 0 so o they are so imm emely numerous ard aid ind and their safety balet in traveling so ao compact il must keep moving or staige avoiding ingao so tar far as possible the ravines of t the je slender water curses courses where empen ice has taught tail lit them to dread the lance like arrow or of the all e lurking keep to the high dai ill ides or only feed in the valleys eye while they have these well covered cohered by sentinel tent bulls to give wai ding of any foes boea approach take away the ii buffalo and the plains will be ba desolate far bejosa beai d their present desolation desolate des on and I 1 cannot but regard with sadness badness the inevitable and riot distant fate of mt noble liable and bar barales brutes already hii in into a 3 breadth baft of wo riar nar i row for them and continually hunted slaughtered decimated by the wolf the indian and the white inan dion they could have stood their ground a against ill in the absence of firearms but ut vi villainous abnous saltpetre salt sait petre is too much tor for them they are bound to perish I 1 trust it may be rather by sudden shot than by slow blow starvation wood and water the prime necessities of the traveler adof as of the settler aarein are in deyuate though not abundant supply for aa a hundred miles and more on this as they are throughout or on the other side of the buffalo range at length they gradually fail all and we tire are I 1 in ll 11 a desert indeed no spring no brook for a distance of thirty to sixty miles which would be stretched to more than a hur hundred dred it if the few tracks called roads were eye not at all run so as to secure water as tar far as possible rivers which have each had fifty to a bundred miles ul tf its course gradually parched up tip by force foice of sun suit arid and wi wind gd arid and its waters lost it iii their own sands so that the weary dusty traveler vainly digs for hours in their dry beds in quest of water for ids his thirsty cattle riv rivers ers which dare not rise again till some friendly brook having its source in fit specially favored region pours lit in its small but steady tribute moistens moi the solids 0 of f it the a river bed and enciu encourages r a e its waters vaters e to 0 ariae rise to the surface again in one cotsman cot case sean an emigrant ni grant assures me that he dugdown dug down to the b bed e d rock of one of these rivers yet found all d dry sand d I 1 S I 1 know now not that I 1 car can satisfactorily account even to myself for the destitution of wood which the plains everywhere present especially the western halt half of them tile the poverty eity of the soil will riot not suffice foi for these Iov lands ands w when hen sufficiently moistened by rain or thawing snow drifts produce gra a and are not so sterpe sterile as the rocky hills hil ls tile the pebbly i knolls of new england w which nevertheless produce wooi wood rapidly rapidly and abundantly on oil the prairies of illinois and civilized kansas the absence of wood is readily for b by y tile the annual fires which lit in autumn or spring sweep over nearly every acre of dead grass killing every tree sprout that may have started up front from the timber in the adje adjacent cent ravine beneath the matted grass but aut here are arc thousands of acres too poorly grassed to be swept by the annual fires on which the thinly scattered reed stalks and lunch bunch grass of last year shake dryly in it the fierce tight night winds yet riot not a tree nor shrub relieves the tamei ess the bareness tile the desolation of thousands after thousands of acres not a twig a scion gives promise of trees that are to be for a time the narrow ravine or lowest intervale of the fre bent streams were fairly timbered with cottonwood and low sprawling elm with a very little littie oak or white ash at long intervals intermixed but these grew gradually thinner a d feebler bebler until nothing but a few small cotton woods remained and these skulking behind fluffs or in sheltered hollows at intervals of twenty to forty miles once in ten tell or twenty knifes anil es a bunch of dwarf willows perhaps two wo feet high would be found cower cowering ingin in some som e petty basin w ached out by a current of water many years age but these like the cottonwoods Cotton woods are happy if able to hold their own indeed I 1 have seen much evidence that wood was more abundant on the plains a hundred years ago than it now is ded dead cottonwoods Cotton woods of generous proportions lie in the chanels of dry brooks on m which lich no tree nor shrub now grows grow a and at one or morea more stations of the express company near the sink of the republican they find dead pine eight miles up tip a creek m where here no live pine has been seen for generations I 1 judge that the desert is steadily enlarging its borders and at the same time its barrenness the fierce drouth that usually prevails throughout the summer doubtless conti to this but I 1 think the violent and al but constant winds evince a stilt still mole disastrous potency high winds are of fre bent all but daily occurrence here within a dozen miles of the great pr ting bulwark of the rocky mountains while fi filin ont a point fifty miles eastward of this they swee sweep over the plains alry almost lost constantly arid and at times with resistless fury A driver stated on our way up with every appearance of sincerity that he be had bad known instances of tires being behig blown eff from wagon w agon wheels heels by the tornadoes of the plains and hard to swallow as that may seem I 1 have other and reliable assurance that when the camp on oil the express road was swept by a hurricane five or six weeks ago so that after the wreck wr ck but three decent could be patch pitched pul up tip out oui of their six as I 1 have already rea narrated one of the wheel tires was found foun not only blovin blown off but nearly straightened cull there is almost always a good breeze at midday mid day and after on the plants plains but should none be felt through the day orte one is almost certain to spring up tip at sunset and blow fiercely through the night thus though hot days or parts of days at aie e frequent on the plains I 1 have experienced not even a moderately warm night nig t and thus trees are not mainly because the winds uproot or dismember dismel liber them or so rock and them while young that their roots cannot suck auck up even the little nourishment that this soil of baking clay resting on porous solid sand would fain afford them thus the few shoots that cleave the eustace of the earth soon wither and distend die and the bro broad ad landscape lemkins treeless che cheerless chaerles erles 8 and forbidden but the dearth of water and wood on the plains is paralleled by the poverty of shrubbery and herbage I 1 have not seen a strawberry leaf far irom from me be the presumption of looking for a berry since I 1 left tile the minnal three set ago ind and the last i blackberry bramble I 1 observed diew on chapmans Chap mans creek at all events the other sidi side of buffalo range A raspberry cane has ha not blessed my si sight these liese three weir wear weeks nor oil ought lit else els elhat lot might inight be hoped to bear an old fashioned fruit ibave save tile tl e tai ial of off Blackb blackberries eries aforesaid and two or three doubtful gra e v lines I 1 nes on some creek a gi gloat ca t way back bac the prickle peir pear very rare anil and very green is is the only semblance of oe fruit I 1 discovered on oil the plains a dwarfish cactus avill ia leaves leave close to the goi govind und ind he span ish nettle a sort of vegetable lege table porcupine i T profusion of wild sage wild wormwood tid other such plants worthless alike to mart man and beast relieved by some well gnawed grass in in the richer valleys alleys of winter water courses the floia usually very scanty canty and always coarse and pool pooi such are my my reflections of the miles or so that 8 separate abrate the pres present ent buffalo range from the c creeks ee s that bat early cany snow water to the platte a and nd the pin aines es that ihde herald our approach to the ROCKY arid and now of all ch changes angee but slowly gradually the cactus the spat ish tactile nettle the prickle pear continue even into and upon the mountains but the pines though stunted and at first faret scattered give variety softness and beauty to the landscape which lich becomes more rolling rolli ig g with deep erand more fie bent valleys and water in in nearly all efthem of them the cotton woods a long along tile the stream no longer lodger skulk behind bluffs bluffis or 7 r hide in in casual hollows you way liay build an all honest bonest campfire camp fire without w tear fear or of robbing an embryo county of the last stick of wood and an dwater water your mules generously without up some long pi river river and condemning those who come after you to weary thuisty marches through night and day the cotton woodi as you near the wind vind ringe of piot etlin heights which rise rank above lank to the ibe westward the more distant still white jobed with snow grow large and stately some of them sixty to seventy feet feel high ard and at least three fett in in diame diameter tei the underwood soil ceases to be desert and becomes prairie on a wave but still in in the main a sandy thinly grassed legion which cannot compare with the prairies of Il linci of iowa or eastek it kansas there seems to be as rich and deep soil in in some ot of the ci cheek eek bottoms especial those of the south platte as almost anywhere and yet I 1 fear the husbandman is doomed to find even el en this belt of grassed and moderately rolling land which stretches along th the e foot of of the tilou mountains to a width edth of perhaps twenty miles life tractable arid and productive than fertile it lies tt at such an all elevation from to feet above the ocein ocean level that though its winters inlets are said to be moderate its cai cainoy not be early there was a fall f a toot foot ot of snow iri in this region on oil the auth of may ma when hen ice formed to loa quarter inch t thickness bickness on oil the pains pain anad and when summer suddenly sets in i about the let of june there are hot suns suits by day and cool strong winds by n night ight with a surfeit of petty pett thunder a balls but little or no rain the gentle rain of last thursday in in he mountains Mount dins fell for a short time in in sheets just at their feet say for a breadth of fly five miles and there ceased 11 hardej a drop fell within A five miles west at or for ank any distance east of this place though the eart earth avas coaxed ten miles west wesl of tilts this ilece hence tile the enterprising lew few who have com commenced in e t I 1 ce d farms and gardens near iscar this point tell me that then their chops have made no progress tor for a week or I 1 two 0 and aid ca make none till they the have hai erain rain I 1 trust wheat cheat arid and rye dye will to do well here whenever wh neier they be allowed a fair chance barley and oats ifo oved very lery early on deeply plow plowed ed land may do tolerably but corti corn though it comes up tip well and looks rank at present will lia tilly ripen be foie even eved should it escape paralysis by dro drouth w while hile potatoes pas p as and most vegetables will p rt aire bri gation 0 or yield but sparingly Yetis yet should hId the gold mines justify their present pi amise farm ing in the right localities at the base of these mountains eien een by the help of irrigation will yield to those who bring to it there the re ui ill site sagacity knowledge and capital richer rewards than thail elsewhere on earth ever eer everything grything thing that can be grown here will command treble or ua druple prices for years and he be who produces any anything ing calculated to diversify arid and improve the gloss mountainous diet of salt pork hot bi ead bean and coffee now necessarily all but bu universal in in this region will b h justly entitled to rank with will puhi benefactors and ana the rocky mountains with their grand aromatic forests their grassy glades their frequent freu fre ent springs and dancing sti all earns eams of the br brightest ight est sweetest water weir pure u r e ali elastic atmosphere and their tine line baled d genie game a and rid fish are destined to be a favorite efort arid and home of civilized man mail I 1 never visited a region w bet a life could be more surely prolonged pio longed or fully enjoyed its ds who h rush littler will rush away again disappointed arid and dis disgusted as hous ads have already done yet the gold is i in these mounta and the right men will gradually unearth it I 1 shall be mistaken if two tw 0 or three millions are not taken oat 0 at it this year and some ten tell millions in in 1860 though all the time there will be as now a stream ot of rath rash adventurers heading away from the di diggings ings declaring that chete Is 13 no ito gold i there beor or next to none so ic as in california and in in australia so it roust must be here where v here the obstacles to be overcome are greater and tile the facilities for getting home decidedly better all laen are not fitted b by nature for gold diggers ya thousands thou sandi wirl will not realize this till they have been convinced coni meed b by s sore 0 re elii experience fience any am good phrenologist should u ld have ben able to tell half the people who rushed hete to BO madly dains the jast att two months that if these mountains had been halt half made of gold eold they never would mould get any of it except by minding their own proper business which was quite bite other than mining nul ling arid and still the lol boig c procession is |