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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 of local use in this quarter
of America, 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. As the English succeeded the French, and found a peculiarity
of nature, differing from all they had yet seen on the continent,
already distinguished by a word that did not express any thing in
their own language, they left these natural meadows in possession of
their title of convention. In this manner has the word "Prairie" been
adopted into the English tongue.
The American prairies are of two kinds. Those which lie east of the
Mississippi are comparatively small, are exceedingly fertile, and are
always surrounded by forests.


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