Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/291

 modify many of the natural productions of the country, and deserves to be studied by those who reside on the spot. Amongst the Cucurbitaceæ, every species of melon, which attain such enormous bulk and perfection east of the Mississippi, are here often of diminutive size, notwithstanding the heat of the climate; and by the increasing dryness of the air, the plants, full of young fruit, wither and prematurely die. The diminution of the forest, and at length its total disappearance, is also, in all probability, attributable to the same source of infertility.

The natural phenomena of the seasons appear no less corroborative of a distinction of climate betwixt the eastern and western territories. From the Pecannerie settlement eastward, heavy rains were experienced for most part of the summer down to the beginning of September; while from the garrison upwards, scarcely any rain except the slightest flying showers had fallen since the month of June. It might, indeed, be reasonably conjectured, that the further any country was removed from the ocean, the great reservoir of rains, and the more it was elevated above that level, the more it would have to depend upon the winter or rainy season for irrigation; and that, in such a country, rain can hardly be expected in the summer, especially if the temperature be elevated. Facts bear out these conjectures, for the higher we ascend toward the great platform of the Andes, the more arid becomes the climate; and at length, approaching the mountains, nothing is to be seen but a barren and desert region, tantalized with numerous streams, which flow only in the winter, and then with such force and velocity, as to tear up frightful ravines, and, sweeping away thousands of acres of friable materials, which to a considerable depth constitute the more ancient {219} incumbent soil, leave behind, upon the denuded