unquestionably run to waste. Again, many large areas, otherwise well situated, are so high that the seasons become too rigorous for agricultural pursuits to succeed.

Numberless proofs of the fact that the soil of what has been called a desert is rich in the elements of fertility may be adduced. Salt Lake Valley was as unpromising in appearance as the "Great American Desert" before the "Latter Day Saints" attacked it, but the application of water has made it one of the most fertile regions in the world. At St. George, in Southern Utah, the victory over Dame Nature has been even more complete. So it is all over the West. The natural products of the country, even though they be artemisia, grease-wood, and cactus, are no indication of the barrenness of the soil. Because a soil naturally produces these only, it by no means follows that these only can be produced. To condemn the country because, under its natural conditions, it does not produce useful grasses, timber, etc., is as unreasonable as to expect a tract of dry land to produce cranberries.

Besides agriculture, a very large interest is cattle and sheep-raising. The cattle ranch consists generally of one or more houses built of logs, near which are log stables and corrals-yards enclosed by strong high fences, built of logs set firmly on end in the ground and placed close together. The cattle belonging to the ranch range wild, the year round, on the neighbouring plains in great herds, mingled with those of other ranches, and to be distinguished from them only by the brand of the owner. Only once a year does the owner see his cattle- -at the annual "round-ups." In the latter part of May and early in June these take place. A large number of herders are employed, and all the cattle-for many miles in all directions are collected and run into a great corral. It is a stirring, lively scene, the "cow boys," as the herders are called, on their half-wild Indian ponies driving in the great

bands of wild cattle, which are constantly breaking and running in all directions, pursued by the herders. Horses and men alike enter into the spirit of the scene.

Once gathered together, the cattle of each ranch-man are placed by themselves, and the calves born that spring, and which still run with their mothers, are marked with the brand of the owner. Such as are destined for immediate sale are taken out, and the rest are turned loose together on the range again.

Through most of the year the life at a cattle ranch is easy, but at certain times there is call for high powers of courage and physical endurance. There are few investments of money which pay more surely or more largely than this, but it involves a solitary semi-barbarous life, with many privations.

The Great Plains form one vast cattle range. From Texas to Montana we find them dotted over with the huts of the ranch-men, and covered with herds of cattle. They follow closely the retreating steps of the buffalo. So, in the great valleys of the mountain region, the Parks of Colorado, the Laramie Plains, the Gallatin and Bitter Root and other valleys of Montana, the great valley of California, and those of Oregon,-indeed, wherever grass grows and hostile Indians are not too plentiful, there we find herds of cattle. Some of the cattlemen are very wealthy, numbering their cattle by hundreds of thousands.

CHAPTER X.

GEOLOGY OF THE CORDILLERAN PLATEAU.

1. General Review.

THE general character of the geology of the region west of the Mississippi, extending to the Pacific coast, has been given by two great lines of elevation, viz. the Rocky Mountain belt, and the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges. They divide the country into three belts-first, the Great Plains; second, the Basin and Plateau Region; third, the Pacific Coast trough, which includes the California Valley, and the Columbia Valley region in Oregon and Washington Territory.

The Great Plains extend from the Mississippi Valley to the east base of the Rocky Mountains.

The Basin Region stretches westward from the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains to the Sierra, and southward into Mexico as a high table-land.

The Sierra, with the Coast Ranges, form a raised margin along the Pacific Coast, and are cut by gorges, which were the gateways through which a large portion of the interior region was drained.

The Pacific Coast trough is a narrow region between the mountains and the Pacific Ocean. North of the California Valley it is nearly obliterated by the encroachment of the mountains.

2. Rocky Mountains.

The outlines of the western part of the North Ameri

can continent have been approximately the same from the earliest Palæozoic time, and the Rocky Mountains existed in embryo as islands of greater or less extent in the Palæozoic seas. As the ages progressed it is probable that the islands, some of which must have had continental proportions, grew smaller and smaller, until some of them disappeared beneath the surface of the ocean; for the whole Rocky Mountain region was affected by a gradual and progressive subsidence which continued into Tertiary time, when the mountains were uplifted to assume almost the shape they have at present. Since their elevation, however, they have been enormously eroded. They are divided into numerous sub-ranges, as the Colorado Range, Park Range, Medicine Bow Mountains, Wind River Range, Yellowstone Range, and Missouri Range. These extend north-westward into British America. In these sub-ranges the nuclei are the Archæan rocks, from which the Palæozoic, Mesozoic, and even Tertiary strata dip away in all directions. These nuclei represent the original Archæan islands, which, as Newberry has remarked, have been "the hinges upon which the great plates of the continent have turned-lines of weakness where the changes of level experienced by the continent have been most sensibly felt.”

Colorado, which has the highest mass of the Rocky Mountains, has probably always been highest above the Paleozoic and Mesozoic seas. Seen from the east, the Colorado Range presents a rugged front, and from its gorges come the streams which form the South Platte and Arkansas Rivers, which have for ages been carrying the products of erosion from the mountains towards the Mississippi River.

3. The Plateau Region.

The Plateau Region may be described as the region reaching from the Rocky Mountains westward to the

Wahsatch Mountains, and southward to Mexico. A portion of the Great Basin is also included, but that is reserved for separate consideration. The Plateau Region is frequently called the Colorado Plateau, as the Colorado River is the principal stream draining it. It is the

southern portion of the great central table-land or basin. region, and was probably contemporaneous in its elevation. with the Rocky Mountains. Newberry, in one of Hayden's Annual Reports, thus describes it :" It is apparent that this high plateau, which stretches away for several hundred miles west of the Rocky Mountains, was once a

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