Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/225

 offering an almost inexhaustible range to cattle. The flowers, which beautify them at this season of nature's vigour, communicated all the appearance of a magnificent garden, fantastically decked with innumerable flowers of the most splendid hues. The soil appears to be universally calcareous, with the limestone nearly white and full of shells, among which there was abundance of a small species of gryphite, and in the more compact beds some species of terebratulites. This calcareous rock, different from the mountain limestone, often contains uncemented or loose shells immersed in beds of friable clay, and is more analogous to that of South Carolina and Georgia, than that of St. Louis and the Ohio.

Along the further edge of the prairie, relative to Red river, there were, in the distance of 10 miles, five or six families settled, or rather encamped, upon the lands of the United States, which have not yet been surveyed or offered for sale.

June 1st.-5th.] I still remained at the house of Mr. Styles, without any very obvious prospect of regaining fort Smith. On the 4th I walked over the adjoining prairie to a more considerable hill than any which I had yet visited, near Red river. Its north-western declivity was thinly wooded; here I found the limestone more compact than usual, containing also smaller shells, but still presenting scarcely any perceptible dip. The summit was scattered with coarse quartzy and petrosiliceous pebbles, originating from the disintegration of a ferruginous conglomerate, of which large masses still lay on the surface compact. A similar overlay, though much more abundant, and continuous, occurs over the calcareous rock of South Carolina and Georgia.

The singular appearance of these vast meadows, now