Great Plains Flashcards
To learn about the Great Plains
What are the Great Plains
The Great Plains are the grasslands of the North American continent, and lie between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains.
What did Early European explorers think of the great plains?
They found the Plains a very hostile environment, and the area was marked on early maps as the ‘great American desert’.
One American explorer, Major Stephen Long, declared: “I do not hesitate in giving the opinion that it is almost wholly unfit for cultivation, and of course uninhabitable”
What are the characteristics of the Great Plains?
- enormous size
- lack of trees
- semi-arid - little water available
- unpredictable weather, including extremely cold and - violent winters
- ferocious winds - the winter ‘Northers’ and the
- scorching summer winds
- many areas flat and featureless
- inhabited by locusts and grasshoppers
- inhabited by wolves
What are the problems within the Great Plains?
Getting there in the first place. Isolation when there.
Nothing to build houses etc with. Nothing for fuel.
Need for drinking water. Need for water for animals.
Very difficult to grow crops. Animals died in winter.
The winter ‘Northers’ brought hail and blizzards. Tornados destroyed houses.
Easy to get lost. Nowhere to get protection from winds.
Locusts ate all the crops.
Wolves were dangerous to people and livestock.
