Playdcn.] " ^g^ [Oct. 2. 



era half of Nebraska successfully. As a graziug countiy, how- 

 ever, it will eveutually prove most valuable. For sheep raising 

 it seems especially adapted. Sheep would thrive well on the 

 short nutritious grasses, and the dr}^ surface strewn with drift 

 pebbles w^ould be admirably adapted to preserve their feet from 

 disease. It seems to me that all this jDortion of the West maj^ at 

 some period be inhabited by a pastoral people, who will raise 

 some of the finest flocks and herds in America. The soil itself 

 is fertile enough, for the cuttings along the Rail Road show a 

 depth of six to twelve inches of vegetable mould, but there are 

 not streams enough to irrigate any great portion. Even the 

 Platte is sometimes so dry as to have no running water below 

 the junction of the foi'ks. The Platte valley is very broad, aver- 

 aging five to fifteen miles in width, and on the bottom a good 

 crop of grass grown every year, so that thousands of tons of 

 hay are made for the use of the Government and the Union 

 Pacific Rail Road. 



The rocks for building purposes are not abundant anywhere 

 along the Platte east of the mountains, but the materials for 

 making brick or artificial building stone occur in the greatest 

 abundance, scarcely equaled in any part of the world. The vast 

 superficial or Post Pliocene deposits which cover the surface, are 

 especially adapted for these purposes. At Sidney Station and 

 westward, there are some rather thick beds of light brown calca- 

 reous grit which seems to answer an excellent purpose for build- 

 ings, and has been much used in the erection of round houses 

 and other buildings of the Union Pacific Rail Road. Near 

 Cheyenne City these same Tertiary beds yield an excellent lime- 

 stone, which has been much used at that place. These Tertiary 

 rocks are rather porous, but work easily, and are suflicicntly du- 

 rable in the absence of more compact rocks. 



Along the margin of the Laramie range, about sixteen miles 

 west of Cheyenne City, there are beds of white limestone of Car- 

 boniferous age, which, when burned into lime, is of the finest 

 quality. The walls of houses plastered with it are as white as 

 snoAv, and it is a gi'eat favorite with masons. The supply is in- 

 exhaustible. 



As soon as we reach the mountains, the building materials are 

 as extensive as the range themselves. The sienites predominate, 

 and are of every quality, from compact fine grained, to a coarse 

 aggi'Cgate of quartz and feldspar, decomposing readil}' under at- 

 mospheric influences. 



