But besides these prairies, there are also extensive tracts of country in this part of the Union which deserve and shall receive our notice; they are called "Barrens." From their appellation, "barrens," the person unacquainted with them is not to suppose them thus called from their sterility, because most of them are quite the reverse. These barrens are found in a level country, with here and there a gentle rise, only a few feet higher than the land around it. On these little rises, for they are not hills, trees grow, and grass also; but grass and weeds are the only occupants of the soil where there is no rise of ground. The soil is alluvial to greater or less depth in these barrens, though on some of the highest rises there is little or none; the lower the ground the deeper the alluvion. On these gentle rises, where there is no alluvion, we find stiff, blue clay, and no pebbles. Under the alluvial black soil, in the lower grounds, we find pebbles similar to those in the prairies, owing to similar causes. On the little ridges, wherever the land is not too moist, the oak or the hickory has taken possession, and there grows to a moderate height, in clusters. It would seem, that whenever the land had become sufficiently dry for an acorn or a hickory-nut to sprout, take root, and grow, it did so; and from one or more of these trees, in time, others have grown around them in such clusters as we now behold. Where the land is lower, the soil deeper, more moist and more fertile, the grass was too thick, and the soil too wet, for such kind of trees to grow in as were found in the immediate vicinity. Imagine, then, natural meadows, of various dimensions, and of every figure which the imagination can conceive, with here and there a gentle rise of ground, decked with a few scattering trees or a thick cluster of them, and bearing a tall, coarse grass, which is thin on the rises, but on the lower grounds thick and luxuriant; imagine, also, a rill of a reddish colour scarcely meandering through ground a little lower than the surrounding plain, and you will have a very correct idea of the appearance of these barrens. They are generally (not always) found on what, in our western dialect, is called second bottom, and not on a level with any streams of magnitude, but rather at their sources. To mention all the counties of this State where these prairies and barrens are found, would be too tedious, and illy comport with the object which we have in view. We shall therefore content ourselves with describing those found in the north half of Fayette county, and the adjoining county of Madison, which may be said to be almost entirely one great barren of more than forty miles extent from north to south, and generally half as much in breadth from east to west. The great barren in Fayette, Madison, and, we may add, in the counties still north of them, is on land elevated from fifty to one hundred feet above the level of the Scioto river, into which the streams that have their sources in this tract of country generally run. This land lies so level that the waters stand on it too long for grain to thrive equally with grass, unless, indeed, the farmer should dig a long drain, which is easily effected by the plough, with a little assistance from the hoe and the spade. But as nature seems to have intended this tract of country for the raising of cattle instead of grain, the husbandman has listened to the suggestion, and in this great barren are found some thousands of the finest cattle which the State affords. Here the horse, the ox, and the swine feed, thrive, and fatten with little expense to their owner; but sheep do not, and never will, thrive on prairie grass, or wet grounds. Fruit-trees, the peach, the apple, the plum, &c. do very well when planted on the gently rising grounds, where the hickory or the oak had once stood. Fruit-trees, such as have been named, thrive very well also on the dry prairies. On the eastern side of the Allegany mountains there neither is, nor was there ever, any thing like these prairies and barrens, if we except those found in the western part of New-York, in the Genesee country, and in the vicinity of the lakes in that quarter. These, the writer of this saw nearly thirty years since, and before that country was much settled. Those prairies were similar in appearance to ours in the west, and were, beyond doubt, formed by similar means.
Speculations on the Origin of the Prairies and Barrens.
What were the causes which contribute to form these natural meadows? That water was the principal agent in their formation, we very little doubt; but this is not the common opinion. According to that opinion, our prairies and barrens, and especially the latter, were occasioned entirely by the burning of the woods by the Indians, in order to take the wild game. Let us try this opinion by the indubitable appearances exhibited by these prairies and barrens.
They are invariably found in a level country, or in one which is nearly so; and the soil is generally, if not always, more moist than that which is uneven and hilly. Would not the leaves, where the land is dry, burn over with as great facility, or even with greater facility, than the grass would where the land is wet? Would there not be more wild game where they could find their food in plenty, such as acorns and hickory nuts, on which they feed in winter, than on land where no food, except dry grass and weeds, were to be found? It is well known that these prairies and barrens could not be burnt over when the vegetable productions which cover them were growing. At the only season when it is possible to burn them, that is in winter, to what kind of regions do the wild animals resort? Is it not to the thick woods? Every hunter will answer in the affirmative. For the space of twenty-five years, the writer of this lived in the vicinity of Indians, and from information on which he relies, as well as from his own actual observation, he confidently avers that the Indians neither are, nor ever were, in the habit of firing the woods in order to take game. Erroneous information first propagated such an opinion, and blind credulity has extended it down to us. Another opinion, equally groundless, prevails to a considerable extent; and that is, that these prairies have all been heretofore cultivated by the aborigines, and that the grass having overspread these plains, prevented the growth of trees on them. The Indians, it is to be presumed, never cultivated any other grain than maize, or Indian corn, and yet we see few or no corn-hills in any part of this country. In the western part of New-York, before it was settled by its present inhabitants, thousands and thousands of acres were to be seen, where the trees were as large as any in the forest, and yet the rows of corn-hills were plainly discernible. I refer in a particular manner to what is now called Cayuga county. There the growth of grass had not prevented the growth of trees, nor did it here. We know that some of these prairies were cultivated by the Indians, but never to any very considerable extent. This country never was thickly settled by Indians, like the shores of the Atlantic and the banks of the rivers running into it. No, it was the ancestors of the Peruvians and the Mexicans who lived here in great numbers, before they migrated to South America.
The question then recurs, by what powerful means were these prairies and barrens formed?
That water was the principal agent, we infer from the fact, that the soil is always alluvial to greater or less depth; the former we call prairie, the latter barren. But how could the country from the southern shore of Lake Erie to Chillicothe, a distance of more than one hundred and fifty miles from north to south, ever be covered with water long enough to form alluvial soil, in many places from four to six feet in depth? I answer, that the Niagara river, the present outlet of Lake Erie, has worn away several hundred feet, and in that way the lake is lowered in the same proportion. The high land, composed entirely of sand, originally extending from the Ohio northerly upwards of forty miles, to Chillicothe, has been worn through by the Scioto river; and the waters which once for ages covered the whole country north of the hills along the Ohio river have been drained off, and the dry land appears where once stood the waters of lakes Erie and Michigan, then forming but one great lake. I am fully impressed with the belief, that were the bottom of Niagara river as high as it once was, the upper lakes would now, as formerly, empty themselves into the Ohio by the Scioto and Miami rivers, and into the Mississippi by the Illinois. I might proceed to examine every part of the country where prairies and barrens are found; but they have all been formed by the same agent, and that is water. An objection to this opinion may be raised by some, that these prairies and barrens are frequently found in the counties of Delaware, Champaign, Madison, Fayette, &c. on ground considerably elevated. Are they higher than the hills near Chillicothe? From a careful inspection, but without any instruments, I am convinced that they are none of them as high.
There is no perpendicular fall of water, but merely a gradual descent, from Columbus to the Ohio; nay, there is no fall from the very source of the Scioto to its mouth. Every one acquainted with hydrostatics, knows that water will run briskly where the descent is only a few inches in a mile. The writer believes that the Scioto, from its source to the Ohio river, does not descend more than one hundred feet, and that the present surface of Lake Erie is about on a level with the Ohio in a freshet; that before the channel of Niagara river was deepened, as it evidently has been, by the attrition of that mighty stream; and before the hills adjacent to the Ohio were worn down by the waters of the Scioto, the whole country north of Chillicothe, where these hills commence, to Lake Erie inclusive, was covered with water, except the very highest hills in the counties of Greene, &c. which were then islands. What tends to corroborate this opinion is, that on these high grounds we find limestone and other rocks, and indications of gypsum; but no alluvion, and none of those fragments and ruins which are produced by water acting mechanically upon a country for a long space of time. We might mention other parts of country where prairies and barrens abound, and which have been formed by water. Those along Greene river, in Kentucky, have evidently been covered by the waters of that river. The bed of that stream has been deepened by the constant flowing of the water along its channel; the water is drained off, and the prairies and barrens now occupy the soil which the water had made and formerly covered. The prairies above the falls of Hockhocking, along that river, have evidently been formed in the same way, and owe their origin and appearances to similar causes. There is near Lancaster, on the last-mentioned river in the State of Ohio, and near the great road, a gentle rise of ground in the prairie, which has every appearance of having been an island, and is so called by the people of the vicinity.
In fine, wherever prairies and barrens are found, there, for a long space of time, water once stood, but was gradually drained off. Else why alluvial soil to such a depth, in low situations, and growing thinner as we ascend on ground more elevated? Else why do we find rocks in more elevated tracts of country, and not in prairies or barrens? Else why do we find no alluvion, no grass, but a thick growth of ancient forest-trees on the higher lands? Else why do we find beneath the alluvion of the prairies, pebbles and shells similar to those at the bottom of lakes and ponds? Else why do the higher grounds to this moment present the appearances of so many islands? And all these indications where no stream now in existence could by possibility have reached them?
That the waters which once covered so great a part of this State (Ohio) were drawn off gradually, we infer from the fact, that there is not a single indication of the effects of an earthquake or volcano, from the foot of the Allegany to the banks of the Mississippi: in this region not a stone nor a layer of earth has been misplaced, nor its position changed.
But an interesting inquiry here presents itself. Were the hills along the Ohio, before they were worn away by the streams which now empty themselves into that river, ever high enough to raise the water to the north of them to such a degree that it would overspread the country where the prairies and barrens are now found? Although the height of these hills has not been ascertained by the proper instruments, yet from appearances, not to be mistaken by any person who examines them and the country towards Lake Erie, these hills are much higher than any land between them and that lake. And from certain indications, (as already remarked,) had not the bed of the Niagara been deepened by the running of that mighty river, Lake Erie, as formerly, would empty itself into the Ohio by the Scioto and Miami; and the great northern lakes would once more discharge themselves into the Mississippi by the Illinois. Lake Ontario, from some cause, (possibly an earthquake, or the wearing away of its outlet, or both,) is considerably lower than it was formerly: in that way the land along its banks, once covered by its waters, is drained, presenting appearances exactly similar to those seen in many of our prairies.