KANSAS AND THE COUNTRY BEYOND. easily pulverized sandstone spoken of above, while the eap, which is oval in form, but nearly round, and on the under side very much resembling an enormous duck without head or tail, twenty feet long by perhaps seventeen or eighteen wide and about ten thick, is com. posed of that hard sandstone of which I have spoken. The upper side is somewhat rough and fractured. To see that huge block of stone so nicely balanced upon so narrow and so friable a base is very curious, and, in spite of reason and experience, the thought that it might grind it to powder at any moment will suggest itself’ There it stands on the open and desolate prairie, and there it has stood for ages. Ata little distance there is a heavy outcropping of the same kind of rocks, some of the forms of which are very curious. In some localities that soft sand rock is strongly impregnated with iron; but it is generally pure, and would make very good glass. Near Fort Harker, (where I am now writing in a tent placed at my disposal by Major General Hancock), there is what was at one time a high column of this sandstone, but it is now crumbled into blocks and loose sand, presenting, in the distance, the appearance of the ruins of an ancient marble temple or tower. Some of our party, before we reached it, insisted that it was a building in ruins; but I knew that that could not be. | This side of that “divide” of which I have spoken we have been in the buffalo-grass region; and here at Fort Harker, and all over these widely extended regions, it is the predominant grass. It grows in small tufts, very much like timothy, and is nearly of the same shade of green, but is finer and more delicate in the blade. In the manner of its growth and seeding it is more like our blue grass; and although I have seen some of it that had shot to seed, I have seen none six inches high. It is very hardy; for although in this encampment it sustains the trampling of hundreds of men and animals, it seems to be as healthy and flourishing as that on the open prairie. I have spoken more particularly of this grass than some readers might deem worth while; but when we remember that it covers mil- lions of acres of territory, that it is probably the most nutritious grass that grows, and that it is capable of feeding to extreme fatness in both summer and winter millions of cattle and sheep, we will see that it is not an unimportant topic. Whether it would grow in our State I cannot say; but, on my return, I intend, if I can, to bring a little of the seed with me. The country to the west of Fort Riley for sixty miles, through which we have passed, is one of extreme beauty and fertility. The valley of “Solomon’s Fork,” as it is called, which comes in from the