File:The continent we live on (1961) (20497955749).jpg

Title: The continent we live on
Identifier: continentweliveo00sandrich (find matches)
Year: 1961 (1960s)
Authors: Sanderson, Ivan Terence, 1911-1973
Subjects: Physical geography; Natural history
Publisher: New York : Random House
Contributing Library: New College of California
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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The Great Grass Sea The Steppes, Prairies, and Bottomlands of the Central Plains and Plateau The whole central portion of this continent is covered by an immensity of grasslands commonly called the Prairie Belt. Today, real prairie of any extent without man-made adjuncts is rare, for much of it has been subjected to agriculture, carved up by a checkerboard of roads, or festooned with wire of all kinds. Its countless bottomlands are also much farmed, and irrigation is making tremendous strides all over its face. Its wildlife has been very largely altered, in that the huge bison herds have all gone and the number of the little prairie dogs has been greatly reduced. This has brought great changes, but only a little greater than those brought about by the creation of new exposed water surfaces; these have introduced or caused visitation by many other animals—mostly seasonal—that were previously scarce or unknown. Some of these, such as the large Western Porcupine, seem passing strange in an environment that appears to be far removed from their normal one. Prairies appear in the interiors of large land masses and are found in all of these—Eurasia, Africa, Australia, and even South America. They develop where rainfall is lowered due to distance from oceans, and particularly since large mountain masses in- variably lie between them and the ocean from which the mois- ture-laden prevailing winds blow. They are, in a way, temperate deserts and share with such belts both daily and seasonal ex- tremes of heat and cold. They are unsuited to tree growth, and since they are usually covered with porous and uncompacted sediments, they also fail to support shrubs. Perennial herbs make use of seasonal rain but cannot stand prolonged droughts, so that only grasses and certain kinds at that can survive upon them. Botanists have long debated the true status of grasslands—trop- ical, temperate, and even those of the polar regions. There have been two schools of thought. One contends that these grass belts are a natural and permanent feature of the vegetational cover of our earth and that their location is the result of fundamental climatic factors. The other faction holds that all grasslands— apart from small glades in woods and forests where the tree growth has, for some reason, been inhibited—are man-made. The grass family was evolved comparatively late in the The White River Badlands, carved into the edge of the prairie plateau, are among the most colorful and fantasti- cally formed phenomena on this continent. 148
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