The Prairie: A Tale
James Fenimore Cooper
Paperback
(Forgotten Books, June 12, 2012)
American Union which lies between the A lleghanies and the Rocky Mountains, has given rise to many ingenious theories. Virtually, the whole of this immense region is a plain. For a distance extending nearly fifteen hundred miles east and west, and six hundred north and south, there is scarcely an elevation worthy to be called a mountain. Even hills are not common, though a good deal of the face of the country has more or less of that rolling character which is described in the opening pages of this work. There is much reason to believe that the territory that now composes Ohio, I llinois, I ndiana, Michigan, and a large portion of the country west of theM ississippi, lay formerly under water. The soil of all the formerS tates has the appearance of an alluvial deposit; and isolated rocks have been found, of a nature and in situations which render it difficult to refute the opinion that they have been transferred to their present beds by floating ice. This theory assumes that the Great Lakes were the deep pools of one immense body of fresh water, which lay too low to be drained by the irruption that lay bare the land. It will be remembered that the French, when masters of the Canadas and Louisiana, claimed the whole of the territory in question. Their hunters and advanced troops held the first communications with the savage occupants, and the earliest written accounts we possess of these vast regions are from the pens of their missionaries. Many French words have, consequently, become cf local use in this quarter of A merica, and not a few names given in that language have been perpetuated. When the adventurers who first penetrated these wilds met, in the centre of the forests, immense plains covered with rich verdure or rank grasses, they naturally gave them the appellation of meadows.(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)About the Publisher Forgotten Books
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