the whole surface. The vast extent and gloomy grandeur of the forest,
the gigantic size and venerable antiquity of the trees, the rankness of
the weeds, the luxuriance and variety of the underbrush, the long vines
that climb to the tops of the tallest branches, the parasites that hang in
clusters from the boughs, the brilliancy of the foliage, and the exuberance
of the fruit, all show a land teeming with vegetable life. The forest is
seen in its majesty; the pomp and pride of the wilderness is here.
Here is nature unspoiled, and silence undisturbed. A few years ago
this impression was more striking than at present; for now, farms, vil
lages, and even a few large towns, are scattered over this region, diversi-
fying its landscapes, and breaking in upon the characteristic wildness
of its scenery.
Still there are wide tracts remaining in a state of nature,
and displaying all the savage luxuriance which first attracted the pioneer;
and upon a general survey, its features present at this day, to one accus-
tomed only to thickly peopled countries, the same freshness of beauty,
and the immensity, though rudeness of outline, which we have been
accustomed to associate with the landscape of the West.

We know of nothing more splendid than a western forest. There is a
grandeur in the immense size of the trees a richness in the coloring
of the foliage, superior to any thing that is known in corresponding lati-
tudes-a wilderness and an unbroken stillness that attest the absence of
man -above all there is a vastness, a boundless extent, an uninterrupted
continuity of shade, which prevents the attention from being distracted,
and allows the mind to itself, and the imagination to realize the actual
presence and true character of that which had burst upon it like a vivid
dream. But when the traveler forsakes the Ohio, and advancing west-
ward ascends to the level of that great plain which constitutes the sur-
face of this region, he finds himself in an open champagne country—in
a wilderness of meadows clad in grass, and destitute of trees. The
transition is as sudden as complete. Behind him are the most gigantic
productions of the forest-before him are the lowly, the verdant, the
delicate inhabitants of the lawn; behind him are gloom and chill, before
him are sunlight and graceful beauty. He has passed the rocky cliff,
where the den of the rattlesnake is concealed, the marshes that send up
fœted stems of desolating miasma, and the canebrake where the bear and
panther lurk; and has reached the pasture where the deer is feeding, and
the prairie flower displays its diversified hues. He has seen the wilder-
ness in all its savage pomp and gloomy grandeur, arrayed in the terrors
of barbarian state; but now beholds it in its festal garb, reposing in
peace, and surrounded by light gayety and beauty.

This distinction is not imaginary; no one can pass from one part of this region to another, without observing the natural antithesis of which we are speaking; and that mind would be defective in its perceptions of the sublime and beautiful, which did not feel, as well as see, the effect of this singular contrast. There is in the appearance of one of our primitive forests a gloomy wildness, that throws a cast of solemnity over the feelings; a something in the wide-spread solitude which suggests to the traveler that he is far from the habitations of man—alone, in the compantonship of his own thoughts, and the presence of his God. But the prairie

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landscape awakens a different train of thought. Here light predominates instead of shade, and a variety of hue instead of a wearisome exuber ance and monotony of verdure; while the extent of the landscape allows the eye to roam abroad, and the imagination to expand, over an endless diversity of agreeable objects.

The remarkable contrast is equally striking in the contour of the surface in the difference between the broken and the level districts. If the traveler looks down from the western pinnacles of the Alleghany, he beholds a region beautifully diversified with hill and dale, and intersected with rapid streams. In western Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, he finds every variety of scenic beauty-the hill, the plain, the valley, the rocky cliff, the secluded dell, the clear fountain, and the rivulet dashing headlong over its bed of rock. The rivers have each their characteristic scenery. The Monongahela, winding through a mountainous country, overhung with precipices, and shaded by heavy forests, with a current sufficiently gentle to be easily navigable to steamboats, has its peculiar features, which are instantly lost when the traveler has passed on the bosom of the Ohio. The winding course and picturesque scenery of the Ohio, between Pittsburgh and Wheeling, impress the beholders as strictly wild and beautiful; below the latter place, the features of the landscape become softened, the hills recede farther from the, river, are lofty, and more rounded; and again, after passing Louisville, these elevations are seen less frequently, and gradually melt away, until the river becomes margined by low shores, and one continuous line of unbroken forest. But if we leave the gentle current of the Ohio, and ascend the Kentucky or the Cumberland, we again find rapid streams, overhung with precipices, and a country abounding in the diversities of a wild and picturesque scenery. Here may be seen the rapid current foaming and eddying over beds of rock, and the tall peak towering above in solitary grandeur. Here the curious traveler may penetrate the gloom of the cavern, may clamber over precipices, or refresh himself from the crystal fountain bursting from the bosom of the rock. But he will find every hill clad with timber, every valley teeming with vegetation; even the crevices of the limestone parapets giving sustenance to trees and bushes.

The scenery presented on the western shore of the Ohio is altogether different. The mountain, the rock, the precipice, and limpid torrent, are seen no more; and the traveler as he wanders successively over Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and the vast wilderness lying beyond, is astonished at the immensity of the great plain, the regularity of its surface, and the richness, the verdure, the beauty, of its wide-spread meadows.

It is, perhaps, not easy to account for the intense curiosity and surprise which have been universally excited by the existence of these plains; for they have been found in various parts of the world. The steppes of Asia, the pampas of South America, and the deserts of Africa, are alike destitute of timber. But they have existed from different causes; and while one has been found too arid and sterile to give birth to vegetation, and another snow-clad and inhospitable, others exist in temperate climates and exhibit the most amazing fertility of soil,These facts shov

that there are various causes inimical to the growth of trees, and the forest is not necessarily the spontaneous product of the earth, and its natura covering, wherever its surface is left uncultivated by the hand of man. The vegetable kingdom embraces an infinite variety of plants, "from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that groweth on the wall;" and the pian of nature, in which there is no miscalculation, has provided that there shall be a necessary concatenation of circumstances. - a proper adaptation of soil, climate, moisture-of natural and secondary causes, to produce and to protect each: just as she has assigned the wilderness to the Indian, the rich pasture to the grazing herd, and the Alps to the mountain goat.

We apprehend that the intense astonishment with which the American pioneers first beheld a prairie, and which we all feel in gazing over those singularly beautiful plains, is the result of association. The adventurers who preceded us, from the champagne districts of France, have left no record of any such surprise; on the contrary, they discovered in these flowery meadows something that reminded them of home; and their sprightly imaginations at once suggested, that nothing was wanting but the vineyard, the peasant's cottage, and the stately chateau, to render the resemblance complete. But our immediate ancestors came from lands covered with wood, and in their minds the idea of a wilderness was indissolubly connected with that of a forest. They had settled in the woods upon the shores of the Atlantic, and there their ideas of a new country had been formed. As they proceeded to the west, they found the shadows of heavy foliage deepening upon their path, and the luxuriant forest becoming at every step more stately and intense, deepening the impression, that as they receded from civilization, the woodland must continue to accumulate the gloom of its savage and silent grandeur around them—until suddenly the glories of the prairie burst upon their enraptured gaze, with its widely extended landscape, its verdure, its flowers, its picturesque groves and all its exquisite variety of mellow shade and sunny light.

Had our English ancestors, on the other hand, first settled upon the plains of Missouri and Illinois, and the tide of emigration were now setting towards the forests of Ohio and Kentucky, climbing the rocky barriers of the Alleghany ridge, and pouring itself down upon the wooded shores of the Atlantic, the question would not be asked how the western plains became denuded of timber, but by what miracle of Provi dence a vast region had been clothed, with so much regularity, with the most splendid and gigantic productions of nature, and preserved through whole centuries from the devastations of the frost and the fire, the hurricane and the flood. We have all remarked how simple and how rapid is the process of rearing the annual flower, or the more hardy varieties of grass, and with what ease a spot of ground may be covered with a carpet of verdure; and we know equally well how difficult it is to rear an orchard or a grove, and how numerous are the accidents which assail a tree. An expanse of natural meadow is not therefore so much an object of curiosity, as a continuous forest; the former coming rapidly to perfection, with but few enemics to assail it, the latter advancing slowly