94. LANDS OF THE ARID REGION OF THE UNITED STATES. 
This is the Canon Land of Utah. In its midst the Green and Grand unite 
‘to form the Colorado. The Price and San Rafael are tributary to the 
Green. The Fremont, Escalante, Paria, Kanab, and Virgin are directly 
tributary to the Colorado from the north and west. From the east the San 
Juan flows to the Colorado, but its drainage area is not included in our 
present discussion. 
West of the lofty zone lie low, arid valleys, interrupted by short and 
abrupt ranges of mountains whose naked cliffs and desolate peaks overlook 
the still more desolate valleys. These short longitudinal ranges are but a 
part of the Basin Ranges, a mountain system extending through Nevada 
and northward into Idaho and Oregon. That portion of the Basin Range 
System which lies in Utah, and which we now have under consideration, is 
naturally divided into two parts, the northern embracing the drainage area 
of Great Salt Lake, the southern embracing the drainage area of Sevier 
Lake, giving the Great Salt Lake District and the Sevier Lake District. 
To recapitulate, the grand districts into which Utah is naturally 
divided are as follows: The Wasatch Mountains and the High Plateaus, 
constituting the lofty zone above mentioned; the Uinta Mountains, the 
Tavaputs table lands, the Uinta-White Basin, the Canon Lands, the Sevier 
Lake Basin, and the Great Salt Lake Basin, the two latter being fragments 
of the great Basin Range Province. 
The eastern portion of the Territory of Utah is drained by the Colo- 
rado River by the aid of a number of important tributaries. The western 
portion is drained by streams that, heading in the mountains and high 
plateaus of the central portion, find their way by many meanderings into 
the salt lakes and desert sands to the westward. 
Considered with reference to its drainage, Utah may thus be divided 
into two parts—the Colorado drainage area and the Desert drainage area; 
the former is about two-fifths, the latter three-fifths of the area of the 
territory. 
All of the Wasatch Mountains lie west of the drainage crest; apart of 
the High Plateaus are drained to the Colorado, a part to the deserts. This 
