Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/52



climatic conditions. Some of the treeless plains are the most fertile lands known; some are level as the lakes; some are barren deserts of drifting sands; others are lofty elevations rising into hills and mountains; they exist in the Arctic regions, in the temperate latitudes and in the torrid zones; some are entirely destitute of sand, gravel or rocks of any description. Others are thickly strewn with granite bowlders, and in others arise enormous ledges of rocks. In some places in Kansas the prairies are covered with flat limestone, in sufficient quantities to fence the land into fields with walls, as in New England and Pennsylvania with cobble stones.