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12
Upland prairies &

These peculiar river bottoms and prairies are only found above the influence of tide water.  Prairies first appear on the Columbia just above Oak Point, before mentioned, and continue near its banks up to the mountains.  On all its branches there are also smaller prairies scattered at intervals, which is also the case on all the larger rivers of the country.
[[left margin]] Importance [[\left margin]]  These are very important as forming [[?matter]] for settlement in this wooded country, but are much isolated by the surrounding forests.  Some of them are undulating and never overflowed, and why these are not covered by forests is difficult to comprehend. 
[[left margin]] Some Dry at all times with trees [[\left margin]]  They do not commonly show any traces of a former growth though in a few cases they have been cropped and show the mounds & hollows left by the stumps.  It is certain that the Indians have always been in the habit of burning off these prairies annually, to kill the young trees and cause a fresh growth of grass.  
[[left margin]] decrease [[\left margin]]  Where this has been neglected, as near Vancouver & Nisqually for the last 30 years, the forest is found to be gradually spreading over them.
Old Indians say that they can remember when many of the prairies were much larger than now, from this cause.

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13.
their Causes

This fact of the agency of man in preserving these prairies leads me to suppose that those not caused by overflowings are all due to that cause.  
[[left margin]] Indian [[\left margin]]  The first immigrants may have found spots yet unwooded by the extending forests, which were, and still are almost the only resort of game such as deer & elk.
[[left margin]] Preservation [[\left margin]]  To keep these as hunting grounds they used the only means they knew, to kill the trees.  
[[left margin]] Kamassa [[\left margin]]  They also derived one of their principal vegetables from these same prairies, and still, the whole tribe resorts to them and encamps during June and July to gather the "Kamassa" root.  They do not however seem ever to have resided permanently on them except when open to the river banks, their life being so much spent in canoes which needed their constant attention.
[[left margin]] 1810? [[\left margin]]  Since the introduction of the horse among them, they have had a new use for the prairies, and some tribes towards the coast have even partly exchanged their canoe life for one on horseback.
I cannot, otherwise than by this agency of man account for the existence of many prairies, whose outline is so sharply defined by the unbroken edge of forest as if carefully cleared by the farmer, every stump dug out, and the ground levelled raked smooth, and sown with grass and flowers.