"Between the highest ridge of the Rocky Mountains on the east, and the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range on the west, is a vast region. of table land, which in its widest part extends through fourteen degrees of longitude; that is about 700 miles from east to west. Humboldt, in his 'Aspects of Nature,' observes that the Rocky Mountains, between 37° and 43°, present lofty plains of an extent hardly met with in any other part of the globe; having a breadth from east to west twice as great as the plateaus of Mexico. In the western part of the great central plateaus above described, lies the Great Basin, otherwise called Fremont's Basin, from its having been first explored by Colonel Fremont. It is situated between the Sierra Nevada and Wahsatch Mountains, and is bounded on every side with high hills or mountains. It is about 500 miles in extent, from east to west, and 350 from north to south. It is known to contain a number of lakes and rivers, none of whose waters ever reach the ocean, being probably taken up by evaporation, or lost in the sand of the more arid districts. As far as known, the lakes of this basin are salt, except Utah Lake. The largest of these, the Great Salt Lake, is filled with a saturated solution of common salt; it has an elevation of 4200 feet above the Sea."*

* Lippincott's Gazetteer.

Owing to the broad base and gentle rise of the Rocky Mountain Range, it is crossed with comparatively little difficulty. Its passes are among the finest on the globe, and will vie in grandeur of scenery with any of those of the old world.

We have already spoken of the rivers which rise upon the slopes of this great range, and shall pass them by for the present, to return to them again in other portions of this work.

SOIL.

The soil of the United States "presents almost every variety, from the dry sterile plains in the region of the Great Salt Lake, to the rich. alluviums of the Mississippi Valley. It can most conveniently be described by following the seven great divisions indicated by the river system of the country, viz., the St. Lawrence basin, the Atlantic slope, the Mississippi Valley, the Texas slope, the Pacific slope, the inland basin of Utah, sometimes called the Great or Fremont Basin, and the basin of the Red River of the north. 1. The St. Lawrence basin embraces parts of Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and all of Michigan; it is an elevated and fertile plain, generally well wooded. 2. The Atlantic slope includes all New England except a part of Vermont; all of New Jersey, Delaware, the District of Columbia, South Carolina, and Florida; and portions of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. It may be subdivided into two regions, a N. E. section and a S. W. section, separated by the Hudson River. The former is hilly, and generally better adapted to grazing than tillage, though some parts of it are naturally fertile, and a large proportion is carefully cultivated. The S. W. section may be again divided into a coast belt from 30 to 150 miles in width, running from Long Island Sound to the mouth of the Mississippi, and including the whole peninsula of Florida; and an inland slope from the mountains towards this coast belt. The former, as far south as the Roanoke River, is sandy and not naturally fertile, though capable of being made highly productive; from the Roanoke to the Mississippi it is generally swampy, with sandy tracts here and there, and a considerable portion of rich alluvial soil. The inland slope is one of the finest districts in the United States, the soil consisting for the most part of alluvium from the mountains and the decomposed primitive rocks which underlie the surface. 3. The Mississippi Valley occupies more than two-fifths of the area of the

Republic, and extends from the Alleghany to the Rocky Mountains, and from the Gulf of Mexico to British North America, thus including parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and all of Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas, and the Territories north of Nebraska and east of the mountains. It is for the most part a prairie country, of fertility unsurpassed by any region on the globe, except perhaps the Valley of the Amazon. The ground in many places is covered with mould to the depth of several feet, in some instances to the depth of 25 feet. The northwest part of the valley, however, offers a strong contrast to the remainder. There is a desert plateau 200 to 400 miles wide, lying at the base of the Rocky Mountains, at an elevation 2000 to 5000 feet above the sea, part of it incapable of cultivation on account of the deficiency of rain and lack of means of irrigation, and part naturally sterile. 4. The Texas slope includes the southwestern country of the Mississippi Valley, drained by rivers which flow into the Gulf of Mexico, and embracing nearly all of Texas, and portions of Louisiana and New Mexico. It may be divided into three regions: a coast belt from 30 to 60 miles wide, low, level, and very fertile, especially in the river bottoms; a rich, rolling prairie, extending from the coast belt about 150 or 200 miles inland, and admirably suited for grazing; and a lofty table-land in the northwest, utterly destitute of trees, scantily supplied with grass, and during a part of the year parched with complete drought. Almost the only arable land in this section is found in the valleys of the Rio Grande and a few other streams. 5. The Pacific slope, embracing the greater part of California, Oregon, and Washington Territory, and parts of New Mexico and Utah,* is generally sterile. That part, however, between the Coast Range and the ocean, and the valleys between the Coast Range, and the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada, are very fertile, and the same may be said of a few valleys and slopes among the Wahsatch and Rocky Mountains, though these are better adapted to pasturage than to anything else. 6. The great inland basin of Utah, which includes besides Utah parts of New Mexico, California, Oregon, and Washington, is probably the most desolate portion of the United States. It abounds

* To this add a part of Colorado, and all of Nevada and Idaho, formerly included in Oregon, and in Utah and Washington Territories.