_Prairie_ is a French word, signifying a meadow, but is here applied only to natural meadows. They are found in all the states and territories west of the Allegany mountains, more or less numerous, of greater or less extent. They are covered with a coarse kind of grass, which, before the country is settled in their vicinity, grows to the height of six or seven feet. After these natural meadows are fed upon by domestic animals, the grass does not grow to a greater height than it does in common pastures. Sometimes this grass is intermixed with weeds and plum-bushes. Some of those prairies are dry, while others are moist. Pickaway Plains, in Pickaway county, in the State of Ohio, lying a small distance south of this place, are nearly seven miles in length, and about three miles in width, on ground considerably elevated above the Scioto river, almost perfectly level, and, in their native state, were covered with a great quantity of grass, some weeds and plum-bushes; and in the most elevated places, there were a few trees. This was one great prairie. Sandusky Plains, lying on the high ground between the head waters of the Whetstone branch of the Scioto river, and the waters of streams running into Lake Erie, are still more extensive than those of Pickaway, covered with a coarse, tall grass, intermixed with weeds, with here and there a tree, presenting to the eye a landscape of great extent. The moist prairies generally lie along some stream, or at the head of one, on level land, or on that which gently descends. The moist prairies are too wet for trees to grow on them; and whether moist or dry, the soil, for a greater or less depth, is always alluvial, resting on pebbles and sand, such as are found at the bottom of rivers, ponds, and lakes. In some instances, the writer is credibly informed, that the shells of muscles are found imbedded in the pebbles and sand. That these shells, such as abound in our rivers, ponds, and lakes, should be found in low prairies along the banks of waters which frequently overflow them, excites no wonder, nor even surprise; but that these shells should be found thus imbedded in pebbles and sand underneath several feet of alluvial soil, in situations more than one hundred feet above the waters of any stream now in existence, is calculated to perplex the mind of the superficial observer. These prairies are found in the western half of the State of Ohio, and north of the hills adjacent to the river of that name. They are also found in every state and territory west of the Alleganies, from the great northern lakes on the north, to the Mexican Gulf on the south; from the western foot of the Allegany mountains, to the eastern one of the Rocky mountains, up the Missouri. In summer, the grass which spontaneously covers them, feeds immense herds of cattle; in winter, the hay that is cut on them, with a little Indian corn or maize, feeds and fattens the same herds. Some of these prairies extend as far as the eye can