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Excerpt from Reports of Explorations and Surveys, to Ascertain the Most Practicable and Economical Route for a Railroad From the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, Vol. 12: Made Under the Direction of the Secretary of War, in 1853-5, According to Acts of Congress of March 3, 1853, May 31, 1854, and August 5, 1854; Book II The introduction of the horse, about the beginning of this century, was a further inducement for burning, and doubtless also caused an increased settlement in the prairies by these people, hitherto accustomed to travel mostly by water, and to depend upon fishing for their subsistence. On some prairies near Vancouver and Nisqually, where this burning has been prevented for twenty years past, young spruces are found to be growing up rapidly, and Indians have told me that they can remember when some other prairies were much larger than at present. That they never were covered with forest is shown by the perfect smoothness of their surface; while in places very completely cleared of forests by fires is always found mounds and hollows, left by stumps, and an immediate growth of shrubs and trees follows, showing a tendency to return to forest, instead of to form prairies. Great changes must have occurred in the conformation and climate of this part of the coast since forests began to cover a surface once probably as bare as that of the Central Plains. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentiona