c names, according to
what covers their surface. We have seen that there are "timber
prairies" and "flower-prairies." The latter are usually denominated
"weed prairies" by the rude hunters who roam over them. The vast green
meadows covered with "buffalo" grass, or "gramma," or "mezquite" grass,
are termed "grass prairies." The tracts of salt efflorescence--often
fifty miles long and nearly as wide--are called "salt prairies;" and a
somewhat similar land, where soda covers the surface, are named "soda
prairies." There are vast desert plains where no vegetation appears,
save the wild sage-bushes (_artemisia_). These are the "sage prairies,"
hundreds of miles of which exist in the central parts of the North
American continent. There are prairies of sand, and "rock prairies,"
where the "cut-rock" and pebble deposits cover the arid plains; and
still another variety, called the "hog-wallow prairies," where the
surface for miles exhibits a rough appearance, as if it had been at some
remote period turned over or "rooted" by hogs.

Most of these names have been given by the trappers--the true pioneers
of this wild region. Who have an equal right to bestow them?
Scientific men may explore it--topographical officers may travel over it
in safety with a troop at their heels--they may proclaim themselves the
discoverers of the passes and the plains, the mountains and the rivers,
the fauna and the flora--on their maps they may give them the names,
first of themselves, then of their _patrons_, then of their friends,
and, lastly, of their favourite dogs and horses. They may call
stupendous mountains and grand rivers by the names of Smith and Jones,
of Fremont and Stansbury; but men who think justly, and even the rude
but wronged trappers themselves, will laugh to scorn such _scientific
coxcombry_.

I honour the names which the trappers have given to the features of that
far land; many of which, like the Indian nomenclature, are the
expressions of nature itself; and not a few of them have been baptised
by the blood of these brave pioneers.

We have said that our adventurers now travelled upon a "rolling
prairie." The surface exhibited vast ridges with hollows between. Did
you ever see the ocean after a storm? Do you know what a "ground-swell"
is?--when the sea is heaving up in great smooth ridges without crest or
foam, and deep troughs between--when the tempest has ceased to howl and
the winds to blow, yet still so uneven