Bacon's descriptive handbook of America ...

Preface

In offering this " Handbook of America" to the English public, the publishers have been actuated by a desire to supply a want that has long been felt ; nothing of the nature and scope of this volume having been heretofore attempted in England. It supplies a mass of information, in a compendious form, relative to the United States and Canada ; embracing their Physical and Political Geography ; the History of their Early Settlement and Development; together with their Agriculture, Manufactures, Commerce, Religion, Education, Laws, Institutions, etc. The characteristics of the Americans, their manners, customs, peculiarities of idiom, etc., are also treated ; the most painstaking care and laborious research having been exercised in order to render the book useful alike to the statesman, the tourist, the seeker after investment, the emigrant,

IV PREFACE.

and. to every one who takes an interest in America, and is desirous of having at hand a complete vade mecum of useful information relating to that country and people.

As the Authors have been careful to collate all reliable facts of general interest, so they have been solicitous to exclude all opinions, prejudices, and speculations of a sectional or party character, being desirous rather of strengthening those sentiments of international amity which should subsist between England and America, and which are best promoted by whatever leads the two countries to a more intimate knowledge and thorough understanding of each other.

Entire originality is not claimed for the work, free use having been made of those devoted to the special topics here comprised in one volume. Among them are " Colton's American Atlas," " Colton's Geography," the " American Cyclopaedia," ( c Appleton's American Handbook," " Lippincott's Gazetteer," " Encyclopaedia Britannica," "Hall's Guide to the West," " Kennedy's Census Eeport," " The Kesources of California," " Bartlett's Americanisms," " Beadle's Year Book," etc. We are especially indebted to Messrs. Appleton for having furnished us with the advance sheets of the " American Annual Cyclopaedia

PREFACE. V

for 1865/' in furtherance of our undertaking. Our acknowledgments are also due to Mr. John Pratt,, of Alabama, whose extensive knowledge of American affairs has been of material advantage in the preparation of the work.

Contents

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Peeface iii

HlSTOEICAL InTEODTJCTION 1

Introduction

Feom the memorable day when Columbus with his tinyfleet and adventurous crew left the harbour of Palos, in search of the Ultima Thule of the western ocean, the Western Hemisphere has never ceased to excite throughout Europe an unflagging interest. Successive generations read over and over again the wonderful story of its first discovery and settlement. It was the dawn of a new era. The marvellous event interested all ages and conditions of life. Philosophers regarded the New World as the New Atlantis of a higher and nobler humanity ; the pious looked towards it as a new field for the promulgation of the gospel ; the ambitious saw what Alexander had pined for in vain — new worlds to conquer ; and the avaricious were filled with dreams of easily-acquired wealth. The cotemporaries of Columbus regarded the New World as literally an El Dorado of untold riches, wherein might be realized the poetic idea of the golden age ; and while each successive exploration and discovery did much to dispel these sanguine illusions, they yet furnished fresh proofs of its immense extent and resources.

The field of discovery once opened by the genius of Columbus, thousands were eager to follow in his steps. Spain had taken the initiative, and continued to hold the foremost rank as long as an important discovery remained to be achieved on the continent ; but every nation which could boast of a commerce worthy the name hastened to gratify its own ambition, or the curiosity or avarice

2 INTRODUCTION.

of its subjects, by sending out expedition after expedition, and gradually was mapped out the vast Atlantic coast of the New World.

North America was discovered by John Cabot under English auspices in 1497, the year before the discovery of the southern portion of the continent by Columbus ; though neither Columbus nor Cabot were aware that they had discovered the continent, and the former died unconscious of the value of the boon he had conferred on mankind. From this time discovery and exploration advanced with rapid, strides, especially when we consider the imperfect state of navigation in the sixteenth century. In less than fifty years from the time Columbus first set foot on the island of San Salvador, the discovery of the Pacific by Balboa had demonstrated that three thousand miles to the west of Europe there stretched, not a group of islands, but a vast though yet undefined continent. "Within the same period De Soto had revealed still further the immense extent of the New World, by the discovery that a thousand miles from the Atlantic coast there coursed a river of such dimensions, as dwarfed by comparison the largest streams of Europe.

The era of settlement followed that of discovery. The doctrine of the right of prior occupancy being then, as now, a fundamental principle of international law, every maritime power of the Old World hastened to assert it. Only ten years after the discovery of the southern continent, Cortez sailed from Havannah for the conquest of Mexico. That magnificent region, together with the present gulf or cotton States, constituting half of the most valuable part of the North American continent, was mostly occupied and colonized by Spain. The French settled the Carolinas and the Canadas; and the Middle States were occupied by the Dutch and Swedes,

INTRODUCTION. O

English colonization was as yet confined to the New England States and Virginia. Soon came the inevitable collision with the aborigines, with its equally inevitable result — their enslavement or extinction throughout the white settlements. The rights of the weak are easily disposed of in international disputes ; but a greater danger threatened the prosperity of the colonies than that consequent on Indian hostilities. The conflicting claims of a number of European nations had still to be adjusted by the sword or by treaty. It was also a question of vast import, whether the North American continent was, like Europe, to be divided and subdivided into a number of separate nationalities, with heterogeneous polities, languages, and social systems, or whether all these were to be moulded in one grand and symmetrical type.

In what manner this question might be decided, no one in that day could form any other than the most vague conjecture. But had it then been foreseen that the time would come when one language would be spoken from Baffin's Bay to the Mexican boundary, who could have foretold to what nation that surpassing glory would attach? The probabilities seemed strongest in favour of Spain, then the most powerful of European nations. She had far outstripped the rest of the world in the work of occupancy and colonization, and possessed all the prestige derived from the discovery of the continent. But the Spanish system of colonization had two fatal defects. It vainly attempted to base a substantial prosperity upon the enforced labour of the natives, while committing the yet greater blunder of debasing and deteriorating the fine old Iberian stock by mingling with it the blood of radically inferior races. The result was a race of mongrels, but little superior to the aboriginal tribes, and a semi-civilization, wherein was a grotesque mingling of Catholicism and

4 INTRODUCTION.

Paganism, of European tastes and customs with savage predilections and habits.

There were three other nationalities which competed for the possession and control of America. Sweden, under Gustavus Adolphus, had made settlements in Delaware ; but the prestige and power of that nation did not long outlive the brief but glorious career of her great ruler. Holland was too much absorbed in a death struggle for national existence to spare any resources for the defence of distant dependencies, and the Dutch, after having, in 1651, driven the Swedes from Delaware, were, thirteen years afterwards, themselves ejected from all their American possessions. The same year saw England in the sole occupancy of the whole Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida, One rival, however, still kept the field. France, whose early explorers justly claim the credit of having first discovered the source and traced the course of the Mississippi River, had formed settlements along its banks and on the shores of the great lakes.

The English, more than a million in number, had established agricultural colonics ; the French, mostly occupied with trade, numbered only about one hundred thousand. The traditional enmity of the two nations was still burning fiercely, and in the colonies, was fed by frequent collisions on the frontiers. The undisguised efforts made by the French about the middle of the eighteenth century to oppose the extension of British settlements by the erection of a cordon of forts on the Ohio, brought the territorial question to a speedy issue, and in 1754 the struggle known as the French and Indian war commenced. After a contest of seven years, the British flag waved triumphant over nearly the whole North American continent. This contest, although generally deemed of but little consequence in comparison with the war of independence which soon followed,

INTRODUCTION.

is invested with a peculiar interest for Englishmen. It was this war which for ever linked the best half of the western hemisphere to the destinies of the Anglo-Saxon race, making of it, indeed, literally a new England, sown with English homes and with English laws, manners, customs, institutions, and language.

The war of independence grew out of the war of 1754. The expenses attending the latter had been enormous — £50,000,000. An unwise attempt to transfer a portion of this burden to the colonies, while withholding from them the right of representation, resulted first in local collisions, and ultimately in the war of the revolution. The distance to be traversed by the British forces was great ; the difficulty of transportation immense ; the colonists were determined and united, while the English people were divided in opinion, and prosecuted the war with anything but energy. The result was what the best heads in Parliament had foreseen, " the loss of the brightest jewel in the British Crown." Yet it had been a costly jewel, as had been shown by results of the war of 1754, and, in common with the other British possessions, would, doubtless, have always been a source of expense rather than profit. This, however, was not the view taken by Englishmen of that day. The disastrous issue of the struggle was universally considered an unmitigated calamity ; and great was the cry of indignation raised against the administration of Lord North when the surrender of Cornwallis and his army to Washington on the memorable 19th of October, 1781, demonstrated the hopelessness of any further efforts to hold the colonies in subjection.

Before the termination of the war, the colonies had formed a temporary union, for the purpose of mutual defence, and the Articles of Confederation adopted for that end were superseded, in 1787, by the constitution of the

O INTRODUCTION.

United States. This was the beginning of the republic. The constitution was ratified by all the States, and George Washington — to whose wisdom, patriotism, and fortitude, more than to any other cause, the country had been indebted for its independence — was elected first president. During the remainder of the eighteenth century various causes combined to retard the progress of the country. Emigration for a while stood still, heavy taxation depressed the energies of the people, and every branch of industry was in a state of stagnation. Gradually, however, the national debt was liquidated, law and order were firmly established, the latent resources of the country began to be developed, and then commenced a career of national prosperity unexampled in the history of the world. The population increased with a rapidity never before witnessed, and manufactures and commerce increased even more rapidly than population. The Southern States were long debarred by climate and by reason of the institution of slavery, from a just share in the general prosperity. Cotton culture had already, it is true, been introduced, but it was not till the invention of the cottongin by Whitney in 1792 that it began to assume the national and even world-wide importance it afterwards attained. Prosperity now became as general as it was rapid, and the history of the United States — unlike the chronicle of civil tumult and foreign wars, which constitutes so much of the history of the East — presents a record of uniform progress pursued amidst almost unbroken peace. The unimportant difficulty with Tripoli, the brief maritime war of 1812, and the invasion of Mexico in 1845, constitute the only interruptions of a repose which continued from the close of the year 1782 till the commencement of 1861, a period of nearly eighty years.

INTRODUCTION. 7

The great civil war recently ended is the only event which has seriously menaced the nnity and progress of the United States. That struggle was, however, but the explosion of moral elements preparatory to entering into a more intimate and compact union. The two vessels which', by a singular coincidence, first landed during the same year Puritans and negroes on the shores of America, had unconsciously sown the seeds of oligarchy a*nd democracy side by side. These principles, so opposite in their nature, could exist together only so long as imperfect means of communication caused the two sections of the Union to be in effect separate communities. The growth of commerce and the increase of travel consequent upon the introduction of railways and steam navigation, brought them into closer and closer contact, until, like two clouds strongly charged with opposite electricities, they encountered each other with a shock which for a while seemed to threaten the existence of the nation. Now that peace again reigns over the vast area of the Union, as profound and apparently secure as if never disturbed, the great conflict may be regarded as a guarantee of future prosperity, rather than a proof of inherent weakness or defects iu American institutions. The Republic already possessed, in a greater degree than any community of equal extent, ancient or modern, unity in laws, customs, manners, language. One antagonistic element still existed — the institution of slavery ; and it only remained to remove this deformity in order to render complete the symmetry and unity of their institutions. Thi3 the social revolution of 1861 has accomplished, and thus every obstacle has been removed from the path of improvement. Possessed of boundless natural resources, free institutions, and an intelligent and energetic people, the future progress of the United States promises to be even greater than that which has characterized the past.

CHxPTEiH L

GENERAL YIEW — MOUNTAINS — GEOLOGICAL FEA- TURES— SOIL— RIVERS— LAKES— CLIMATE— ZOOLOGY —VEGETATION.

GENERAL VIEW.

The present domain of the United States occupies the central portion of the Continent of North America, extending from British Territory on the north to Mexico and the Mexican Gulf on the south, a distance of 1730 miles, and from the Atlantic Ocean on the east to the Pacific on the west, a distance of about 3000 miles. The area of the entire country is more than 3,000,000 square miles, with a frontier of 10,000 miles, more than half of which is composed of ocean and lake shores. Since the close, of the revolutionary war in 1783, the limits of the Union have been extended by the purchase of Louisiana from France in 1803, and of Florida from Spain in 1819, which added to the national domain an area of 966,000 square miles. In 1846 Texas, with an area of about 318,000 square miles, was annexed, and in 1848 a portion of Mexico was acquired, measuring about 516,000 square miles ; making an aggregate acquisition of 1,800,000 square miles during sixtyfive years.

The Union was first formed by the confederation of Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Massachusetts, Mary-

GENERAL VIEW. V

land, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia, which are termed the " Original Thirteen States." This number has since been increased by the admission of twenty- three new States, viz.: — Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. These thirty-six States, with ten "Territories" and the District of Columbia, embrace the entire area of the country. The Territories are Arizona, Colorado, Dacotah, Indian Territory, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah, and Washington. More than half their area is embraced in the immense valley included between the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies, and bisected by the Mississippi River. A most remarkable feature of the United States is the low plain, from fifty to one hundred miles wide, which extends along the Atlantic coast. Beyond this plain the land rises towards the interior till it terminates in the Alleghanies. The rest of the country east of the Mississippi is agreeably diversified. The soil of the low country, except along the water-courses, is sandy, and comparatively unproductive ; but the remainder has a strong fertile soil, capable of supplying a dense population. The Pacific slope is exceedingly diversified, abounding in wild and majestic scenery, and traversed by magnificent rivers. Much, however, of its interior is desert. The great California desert, indeed, is one of the dreariest regions of the world, the solitude being relieved only by a few oases in the neighbourhood of streams, or on the borders of the numerous lakes.

MOUNTAINS.

The territory of the United States is traversed by two principal mountain chains : the Alleghanies, extending from New Hampshire to Alabama ; and the Rocky Mountains, extending from the British possessions to Mexico.

" Mountains that enfold, In their wide sweep, the coloured landscape round, Like groups of giant kings, in purple and gold, That guard the enchanted ground."

These chains divide the country into three distinct regions. The first of these is the Atlantic slope, including the eastern declivity of the Alleghany Mountains, and the basins drained by the rivers that flow from them to the ocean. The second is the basin of the Mississippi, or more properly of the Missouri, comprising the vast central valley watered by these rivers and their innumerable tributaries. The third region, or the Pacific slope, is enclosed between the shores of this ocean and the chain of the Rocky Mountains, which divides it from the former. Each of these divisions, surpassing most of the European kingdoms in size, has its own peculiar features, and is distinguished by soil, climate, and natural productions.

The Alleghanies consist principally of a long plateau, crested with several chains of mountains or hills, separated from each other by wide and elevated valleys. East of the Hudson the mountains are chiefly granite, with rounded summits, often covered at their tops with bogs and turf, and distributed in irregular groups without any marked direction. In Pennsylvania and Virginia they assume the form of long parallel ridges, varying in height from 2500 to 4000 feet, and occupying the breadth of one hundred miles. In the northern part of Georgia, where they terminate,

MOUNTAINS. 11

they again lose the form of continuous chains, and break into groups of nearly isolated mountains, some of which attain a considerable elevation. The Rocky Mountains are a continuation northward of the Cordilleras of Central America and Mexico, and traverse in several ranges an area 1000 miles from east to west, embracing in all its parts nearly 1,000,000 square miles. The most easterly of these ranges runs through the Territories of New Mexico, Colorado and Nebraska, and forms the dividing line between Dacotah and Washington. The next great range of the Rocky Mountains towards the west, is called the Wahsatch Mountains, lying south of Great Salt Lake. In Utah these mountains spread over a wide district, and the ridges of the several peaks lie in various directions. The western portion of the Rocky Mountain chain enters the United States on the south from Lower California, and soon branches into two ranges, the highest of which, the Sierra Nevada, runs at the distance of about 160 miles from the Pacific, while the inferior parallel ridges, known as the Coast Range, keep within 10 to 50 miles of the ocean, to mingle again with the Sierra Nevada, where Mount Shasta reaches an elevation of 14,000 feet.

The White and Monadnock Mountains, in New Hampshire; Mount Katahdin, in Maine; Mount Tom, Mount Holyoke, and Wachusett, in Massachusetts; the Catskills - , Adirondacs, and Alleghanies, in New York ; Schooleys Mount, in New Jersey ; and Pilot Mountain, in North Carolina, are celebrated in their surpassing wildness and beauty, as indeed are all the great mountain ranges of both the Pacific and Atlantic slopes, and afford endless scenes of picturesqueness and sublimity.

GEOLOGICAL FEATURES.

If we draw a line from New York to the east end of Lake Ontario, the peninsula lying north-east between the St. Lawrence and the sea, consists of primitive interspersed with some patches of secondary rocks. From this line southward the country has a different geological character. A belt of alluvial soil, beginning at Long Island, extends along the shore of all the Southern States to Natchez, on the Mississippi, having an average breadth of a hundred miles, and probably including all Florida except some high ground in the interior. It is everywhere penetrated by the tide water in the rivers. On the west side of this is a region of primitive rocks from 100 to 200 miles broad, in which gneiss predominates. It embraces the eastern ridges of the Alleghanies with the rolling country at their foot. On the west side of this again is a long narrow zone of transition rocks, including the western ridges of the Alleghanies, and extending from Lake Champlain to the north-west angle of Georgia.

One of the most remarkable circumstances connected with the primitive rocks is the granite ridge which forms the boundary between the primitive and the alluvial regions. This ridge appears to have been the ancient line of the sea-coast in the Southern and Middle States, and very probably through Connecticut.

New England rests on a bed of granite and marble ; the Middle States on sandstone and freestone ; and the greater part of the Ohio River region has a foundation of limestone.

The oldest known strata in the crusts of the earth, the Laurentian series, consisting of gneiss, more or less granitic, quartz rock, limestones, dolomites, conglomerates, and in the upper portion of feldspathic rocks, occur in the man

Mftr '

GEOLOGICAL FEATURES. 13

Adirondac region of northern New York. The Green Mountains, the White Mountains, and a greater portion of the New England States, consist of crystalline formations of a more recent date, marked by the absence of argillaceous, talcose, and chloritic schists, and by various other characteristics.

The next overlying series, known as the Huronian, and regarded by Murchison as the equivalent of the Cambrian sandstones, is found in Michigan and the southern shore of Lake Superior. Though these rocks have been classed as azoic, indications are found of their having been originally sedimentary deposits, abounding in organic bodies, the forms of which have been dislodged by the metamorphic action to which they have been subjected.

In Massachusetts, the central portion of North Carolina, and in Georgia, occur the oldest fossiliferous rocks, known as the "Taconic system," and characterized by ancient genera of trilobites. Some geologists maintain that some of the sandstones in Iowa and Minnesota should, by reason of their fossils, be placed in this system.

The crystalline and schistose strata of New England, the highlands of New York and New Jersey, and extending through the Appalachian chain to Alabama, have been variously classed, some considering that as they consist of feldspathic gneiss, quartz rocks, talcose, and chloritic slates, they form the base of the Appalachian system. Others consider them as the metamorphosed sandstones, etc., of the lower Silurian series.

From this range westward, the whole country to the Rocky Mountains, with the exception of the Ozark mountain region, in Southern Missouri, and a few localities in Wisconsin and the northern peninsula of Michigan, contain no crystalline rocks.

The lower Silurian limestones come np to the surface at Cincinnati, Ohio, at Frankfort, Kentucky, and at Nashville, Tennessee. The Carboniferous series whenever met with, is the uppermost formation, excepting in Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas, where the Permian strata have been recognized. The great plains that extend from the Missouri and up the valleys of the Arkansas, "Red River, to the Rocky Mountains, are almost exclusively occupied by cretaceous rocks, sometimes overlaid with those of the tertiary age. Florida, Louisiana, and the coasts from Texas to Martha's Vineyard, are composed of the tertiary, the older strata cropping out inland.

The Cretaceous formation rests principally on the metamorphic belt of the Appalachian, rising to the higher platform of those rocks, the ascent south of New York being marked by the first or lowest falls of the rivers, and determining the head of their navigation. This formation passes across New Jersey and Northern Delaware, from New Tork Bay to the head of Chesapeake Bay, occurs at a few points in Virginia, near Wilmington, North Carolina, and through Central South Carolina and Georgia ; thence it stretches in a broad continuous belt, through Central Alabama, Northern Mississippi, and Western Tennessee.

A narrow belt of red sandstone occurs along the lower valley of the Connecticut, continued through New Jersey, across Pennsylvania, into Virginia.

The newer Pliocene is met with only in a few localities in the southern part of Maine, and on the borders of Lake Champlain.

The drift formation covers all the northern part of the United Stales, the limit southward being lat. 40 . The deposits of alluvium are mostly confined to the borders of the rivers and lakes, the most extensive and remarkable

GEOLOGICAL FEATURES. 15

alluvial tract being that around the month of the Mississippi, where it spreads out into a delta of broad area.

In the Rocky Mountains, the metamorphic rocks of the Appalachian are repeated on a grander scale. Between the numerous ridges are wide belts of the cretaceous strata and modern tertiary deposits. These form the plains and slopes which stretch out towards the Pacific. In the mountainous districts are found all the formations from the lower crystalline groups to the coal, often traversed by great dikes of trappean and other eruptive rocks.

Beyond the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains, and on the Colorado River, is a volcanic district, extending to the Pacific. It consists chiefly of tertiary strata, which have been so broken up by movements of the crust and volcanic eruptions, as to present an excessively rugged and diversified structure.

The metals of the United States are principally found in the crystalline rocks, the exceptions being the copper region of Lake Superior, and some of the western lead and iron mines, frequently in sandstone.

In the Atlantic division, the metals follow the Appalachian range. In the Pacific division they follow the Rocky Mountain and Sierra Nevada ranges ; the debris from which, swept down into the tertiary strata, have furnished these with the precious metals in large deposits.

'Except a few small insulated fields, all the bituminous coal in the United States lies west of the Appalachian chain, where a vast series of coal-beds stretch from the mountains westwards through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama, into the State of Mississippi, and even as far as 200 miles beyond the Mississippi River. Anthracite coal, or that best suited for manufactures, lies at the northern extremity of this great field, in Pennsylvania, in the western parts of Virginia, in part of Ohio, and in Illinois. In the central portion of the lower peninsula of Michigan is a coal-field of some extent, and another and larger one spreads over nearly the whole of Iowa, Northern Missouri, and a large part of Kansas.

SOIL.

The soil presents almost every variety, from dry sterile plains in the vicinity of the Great Salt Lake, to the rich alluvia of the Mississippi Valley. It may be divided into seven great divisions, indicated by the river systems 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, 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 sub- divided into two regions, a North-East and a South- West section, separated by the Hudson River. The former is hilly, and generally better adapted to grazing than tillage, though some parts are generally fertile, and a large proportion is carefully cultivated. The South- West section may be again divided into a coast belt from 30 to 150 miles in width, running from Long Island round to the mouth of the Mississippi, and including the whole

SOIL. 17

peninsula of Florida, and an inland slope from the mountains towards this coast belt. 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, including parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, and all of Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. It is for most part a prairie country, of fertility unsurpassed anywhere on the globe, except perhaps the valleys of the Amazon and the Nile. At the north-west of the valley there is a desert plateau ranging from 200 to 400 miles, lying at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, at an elevation of from 2000 to 4000 feet above the sea, the greater portion of which is incapable of cultivation, owing to the deficiency of rain and want of means of irrigation, and a part naturally barren. 4. The Texas slope includes the country south-west of the Mississippi valley, drained by rivers which flow into the Gulf of Mexico, and embraces nearly all of Texas, and parts of New Mexico and Louisiana. It may be divided into three regions: a coast belt, wide> low and very fertile, especially in the river bottoms ; a rich prairie extending from the coast belt, well suited for grazing; and a lofty tableland in the north-west, perfectly devoid of trees, and almost devoid of grass, and during a portion of the year completely parched with drought. Almost the only arable land in this last division is found in the valleys of the Rio Grande. 5. The Pacific slope embracing the greater part of California, Oregon, and Washington Territory, and parts of ISTew Mexico and Utah, is generally sterile, though the valleys between the Coast range and the Cascade range and Sierra Nevada are very fertile ; as are also a few valleys and slopes among the Wahsatch and Rocky Mountains, though the latter are better adapted to pasturage than to agriculture. 6. The great inland basin of Utah, which includes, beside Utah, parts of New Mexico, California, Oregon, and Washington, is, probably, the most desolate portion of the United States. It abounds in salt lakes, and there are only a few valleys where the soil acquires by irrigation sufficient fertility to afford a support for man. 7. That portion of the basin of the Red River of the North which belongs to the United States, is confined to the small tract on the north part of Dacotah and Minnesota. It contains very productive lands, especially in the river bottoms.