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Show 40 TEAVELS AND ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST. CHAPTER YL Kansas Territory-Arkansas and Kansas Rivers-Tributaries-Timber-River Bottoms -Varieties of Game-Cereals-Coal-Geological Formation-Adventure in the Woods -Wild Grapes-Indian Method of procuring them-Brandy vs. Poison-Return of the Author's Brandy-flask-He turns Washerwoman-Novel Mode of Mangling Clothes -Lost Mule-Beaver Trappers-Rifle Practice. KANSAS lies between the thirty-seventh and fortieth degrees of north latitude. The Indian Territory bounds it on the south, Utah and New Mexico on the west, Nebraska on the north, and Missouri on the east. There are numberless streams of water in the Territory. The Arkansas which rises in the Rocky Mountains, runs nearly six hundred miles through it. Kansas River, which empties into the Missouri near Kansas City, has many forks of considerable size, viz., the Republican, Solomon Fork, Grand Saline Fork, Vermilion, Little Vermilion, Soldier Creek, Grasshopper Creek, Big Blue, Pawnee Fork, Walnut Creek, Waka-rusa, and several others. The country is well watered, and on all the rivers grows timber of large size and in great variety. The river bottoms are very fertile, being covered with an alluvial black soil from twelve to twenty-four inches deep. These bottoms vary in width from four to seven miles. Another bottom over which the waters must have once flowed, is elevated about sixteen feet from the river, and high up some sixty to seventy feet, lies the immense |
