noun
definition
An extensive area of relatively flat grassland with few, if any, trees, especially in North America.
Examples of prairies in a Sentence
In the 5th century they attacked the Russians in the Black Sea prairies, and afterwards made raids upon the Greeks.
The prairies shade off into the coast marshes.
In the southern and central portions of the state open rolling prairies interspersed with groves and belts of oak and other deciduous hard-wood timber predominate.
Farther west two narrow belts of timber, consisting mostly of stunted post oak and black jack, and known as the Eastern and Western Cross Timbers, cross the prairies southward from the Red river, and a low growth of mesquite, other shrubs and vines are common in the eastern half of the Prairie Plains.
Its open spaces are lovely prairies, on which the Daurian flora flourishes in full beauty.
Like Chicago it stands on the eastern border of the prairies.
The low shrub oak plateau to which the opposite shore arose stretched away toward the prairies of the West and the steppes of Tartary, affording ample room for all the roving families of men.
The Intermediate sub-region comprises the vegetation of the large area occupied by the steppes of the Old World, the prairies of the new and the forest region of both.
The prairies of south-western Louisiana have much yellow marl underlying them.
The danger of floods and the difficulty of drainage make the extension of the practice unprofitable, and the opening of the prairies has made it unnecessary.
In the central part there are extensive prairies.
Between these two chains are round hills consisting of lavas or sometimes of volcanic tuffs, covered with the long silvery grass which also clothes vast prairies in Java and Sumatra.
Later on serfdom, religious persecutions and conscription were the chief causes which led the peasants to make their escape to Siberia and build their villages in the most inaccessible forests, on the prairies and even on Chinese territory.
Thence westward to the Tooth meridian are the prairies, the south-westward extension of the Prairie Plain province.
Occupying 135 degrees of latitude, living on the shores of frozen or of tropical waters; at altitudes varying from sea-level to several thousands of feet; in forests, grassy prairies or deserts; here starved, there in plenty; with a night here of six months' duration, there twelve hours long; here among health-giving winds, and there cursed with malaria - this brown man became, in different culture provinces, brunette or black, tall or short, long-headed or short-headed, and developed on his own hemisphere variations from an average type.
In the extreme north-east there is a range of low hills known as the Coteau des Prairies, which crosses the state in a S.S.E.
The Big Sioux river rises in the Coteau des Prairies in the north-east and flows almost directly south for a distance of 300 m., in the lower part of its course forming the boundary between South Dakota and Iowa.
The snows are generally light, and cattle may graze on the prairies during most of the winter; but there are occasional severe " blizzards," which are accompanied by intense cold and high winds.
The ascent to the upper plain then becomes very gentle, though there is a rise of 400 or 50o ft., until it reaches the south-eastern portion of Sargent county and changes into the more abrupt Coteau des Prairies, a plateau about 2000 ft.
The prairies in this second table-land are gently rolling, and are covered with drift from the continental ice-sheet of the glacial period.
Among the lakes, sloughs and stubble-fields of the prairies, teal, ducks, coots and geese are found in abundance.
The prairies of the more humid regions are covered with valuable grasses, and with masses of showy native flowers, which bloom from spring to autumn.
The invasion was wonderfully accelerated through the I9th century, when the vast area of the treeless prairies beyond the Appalachians was offered to the settler, and when steam transportation on sea and land replaced sailing vessels and wagons.
Thus the prairies may be described as lying in a general way between the Ohio and Missouri rivers on the south and the Great Lakes on the north.
Under the older-fashioned methods of treating physical geography, the prairies were empirically described as level prairies, rolling prairies, and so on.
The prairies are, in brief, a contribution of the glacial period; they consist for the most part of glacial drift, deposited unconformably on an underlying rock surface of moderate or small relief.
The greatest area of the prairies, from Indiana to North Dakota, consists of till plains, that is, sheets of unstratified drift, 30, 50 or even 100 ft.
It is thus by sub-glacial aggradation that the prairies have been leyelled up to a smooth surface, in contrast to the higher and non-glaciated hilly country next south.
The fertility of the prairies is a natural consequence of their origin.
East of the Neosho river the prairies merge into a hilly woodland.
The forests are composed of the birch, oak and other deciduous trees, the soil is dry, and the woodlands are divided by green prairies.
The moose and red deer are found in the wooded regions, and the jumping deer and antelope on the prairies.
Bright or yellow plug and smoking leaf are grown on the pine uplands and pine " flats," and a small amount of cigar tobacco on the flats, prairies and " bluffs."
These prairies are traversed by ridges, which facilitate irrigation, and are underlaid by an impervious subsoil, which facilitates both effective storage and drainage.
All the prairies district - the centre of which is Crowley - is becoming one great rice field.
The high plains of the west slope of the plateau are also rich prairies diversified with woods.
Nearly all the species of plants which grow on these prairies are common to Europe (paeonics, Hemerocallis, asters, pinks, gentians, violets, Cypripedium, Aquilegia, Delphinium, aconites, irises and so on), but here the plants attain a much greater size; a man standing erect is often hidden by the grasses.
As in all uncultivated countries, the forests and prairies of Siberia become almost uninhabitable in summer because of the mosquitoes.
It was supposed at that time that this line would form part of the projected trans-Siberian railway; but it was finally decided, in 1885, to give a more southerly direction to the railway and to continue the Moscow-Samara line to Ufa, Zlatoust in the Urals, and Chelyabinsk on the west Siberian prairies, at the head of one of the tributaries of the Ob.
Thence the line was continued across the prairies to Kurgan and Omsk, and from there it followed the great Siberian highway to Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk, and on round Lake Baikal to Chita and Stryetensk on the Shilka.
Though an expert climber, it is by no means confined to wooded districts, being frequently found in scrub and reeds along the banks of rivers, and even in the open pampas and prairies.
The scissor-tailed flycatcher, or Texas bird of paradise, is common on the prairies and in the lightly wooded districts.
The herds of bison, antelope and elk that once roamed the prairies have vanished, but a few mountain sheep still graze on the grass-covered mesas in inaccessible portions of the Bad Lands.
The pasque flower is found on all the prairies and is the earliest to appear.
Under this system prosperous towns and villages have sprung up among the prairies.
The Prairie States.The originally treeless prairies of the upper Mississippi basin began in Indiana and extended westward and north-westward until they merged with the drier region described Leyond as the Great Plains.
Moreover, whatever the rocky understructure, the till soil has been averaged by a thorough mechanical mixture of rock grindings; hence the prairies are continuously fertile for scores of miles together.
The true prairies, when first explored, were covered with a rich growth of natural grass and annual flowering plants.
The treelessness of the prairies cannot be due to insufficient time for tree invasion since glacial evacuation; for forests cover the rocky uplands of Canada, which were occupied by ice for ages after the prairies were laid bare.
It has a relatively rapid descent toward the inner lowland, and a very gradual descent to the coast prairies, which become very low, flat and marshy before dipping under the Gulf waters, where they are generally fringed by off-shore reefs.