thick and valuable in places. It has been estimated by some that the precious metals will be found here in unrivaled richness of deposits and ease of mining and separation. The region of Prescott is proving extremely profitable for this enterprise, and the southern border, near Tucson, was found to yield a purity and quantity of metal seldom equaled in any part of the world by the missionaries of that region if their accounts are to be believed.

Other valuable metals, especially copper, are found in large quantity, and the Territory is declared to be peculiarly rich in rare animals and plants. There is, therefore, good reason why, at the beginning of 1880, so many large railroad enterprises were aiming for this region and proposing to make use of the best and smoothest route across the continent which it provides. By the close of the nineteenth century Arizona is sure to be far advanced in development and not the least prosperous and rich among the new states of the Pacific Slope. It will always show so much bare rock, and so much mesa, or elevated plain, that can not be prevented from parching up under the hot sun, as to more or less resemble a desert in many parts. Yet it has really extensive forests, a vast amount of pasture for stock where there is not water enough for agriculture, and many meadows charming the eye with herbage and flowers.

Cultivation to the extent now practicable and easy will make a great difference. Many of the most fertile plains, abounding with traces of the prehistoric cultivators, capable of rivaling in amount of choice productions any other region in the world, and of being made to look a very paradise, are now covered with unsightly plants when producing anything at all. The air is overheated by this bare and parched surface; it eagerly draws away all the surface moisture which rises to be wafted by the winds to the cool mountain tops or sides. Vegetation and trees produced by irrigation will cool the present hot air, yield to it more moisture, produce more

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favorable electric conditions and more frequent local showers. In short, all the impressive and charming changes made in the Great Salt Lake Valley and Southern California will, by and by, render Arizona one of the most attractive regions in the Republic.

CHAPTER IV.

THE GREAT DIVIDE-THE PRINCIPAL PLATEAU OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.

The parts of California, Oregon and Washington now most favored and held to be the best lie beyond the western range of the Rocky Mountains. This second range is called the Sierra Nevada, in California, or along its southern course, and the Cascade Range, further north. The Pacific Coast region, west of this range, may be generally stated at 150,000 square miles. It has many and rare advantages. East of this range lie Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and parts of California, Oregon and Washington. Arizona, Utah and Idaho cover much of the western or interior slope of the Great Divide, or Summit Range, of the Rocky Mountainscalled by the Spaniards the "Sierra Madre," or Mother Range.

This is a very suggestive and not unsuitable name for such a massive elevation. It consists, in its great outlines, of a high plateau, which, on the whole, slopes gradually to the depression on the west and to the Mississippi Valley on the east. From the general plateau rise irregular lines of high peaks and elevated masses of rock and the height of land which turns the drainage toward the Atlantic or Pacific. East of this summit line are the headwaters of the Missouri, the western branches of the lower Mississippi and of the Rio Grande; west of it, down southwest and northwest into the great interior basins the numerous branches of the Colorado and Columbia flow and emerge from them to pour their waters into the Pacific.

This plateau is very extensive, much broken and diversified by great irregularities, and, viewed by localities, often seems

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to lose the character of a plateau altogether. Vast gorges, high ranges of mountains, or precipitous descents to lower ground alternate with deep basins, or parks, as they have been called, long valleys of great width-when estimated from the general elevation on either side-or rolling slopes which continue the descent through hundreds of miles in one direction so gradually as to render it insensible to the traveler. Yet these are but accidents and variations from a vast and grand unity. A general plateau remains as a base for innumerable mountain elevations, as the site of wide, often grassy, plains, of lakes and inclosed basins, and as the general elevated divide between Atlantic and Pacific drainage.

Since this general region has many peculiarities and important features of its own, is becoming the subject of great interest to the American people, the scene of various and most profitable activities, has, already, one organized state and will soon have several more, a chapter is here devoted to the consideration of it.

Arizona is on the western side of this Divide, and descends to the southwest in a succession of plateaus or mesas, which, if they do not, locally viewed, appear so, are yet so many vast graduated steps from the borders of Colorado and New Mexico to the mouth of the Gila. This last named river flows along a depression more gradual in its western descent than elsewhere, the cañon where it breaks through the barrier of the Mogollon Mountains from the high central plateau of New Mexico being near the western boundary of that Territory, and of moderate size and depth compared with the Grand Cañon of the Colorado.

Montana occupies a position in some respects similar as to its eastern section, yet marked by numerous strong contrasts. Western Montana sits astride of the great mountain vertebra of the continent, its plateau features are not as distinct, not as high, nor is the climate as arid. Its general appearance is, therefore, strikingly different although the fact is less in

reality than it seems. The extensive surface-wearing of the Ice Floe, peculiar to the continent east of the Rocky Mountains, rounded many of its mountain chains, removed much of the ragged roughness and barrenness that is so conspicuous in Arizona, and its climate being less hot and drying, it is more extensively and profusely covered with grasses. At the same time the smoothing agencies of the Glacial Epoch gave its eastward descent more the character of a slope than is seen at the southwest in Arizona where no such general agencies operated.

Montana is stated to have, out of its 93,000,000 acres of surface, something more than one-sixth, or 16,000,000 acres, of agricultural land. It is possible that Arizona, with 20,000,000 less acres, may prove to have quite as much land that may finally be cultivated, although that point is not yet fully tested. Montana has 14,000,000 acres of timber-the most of it being of great value-and 38,000,000 acres of grazing land unsuitable for the plow. Arizona appears to be less fortunate in these respects now, although the cooling and moistening of the atmosphere by cultivation may somewhat equalize the present difference in the course of years.

Montana is traversed by the great river system of the Missouri, the Yellowstone being a kind of parallel to the Gila. There are many romantic cañons, though all are moderate in length and depth compared with the Grand Cañon of the Colorado. Its natural marvels, if less magnificent in compass, are more within the range of vision, and more fully appreciated because more easily measured by the senses. They do not so absolutely overpower the mind and beget the feeling that so much has escaped its comprehension that the effort at expression is useless. The Falls of the Yellowstone in the National Park are some 200 feet wide and nearly three times the height of Niagara. The smaller mass of water, falling the greater distance, makes a much stronger impression in proportion. Montana has natural wonders which