836 transactions of the american institute. 



Pacific Basin. 



A bird's-eye view of the Pacific b^sin, looking over it from the 

 peaks of the Rocky mountains, exhibit it as a series of broken val- 

 leys, separated by short ranges of mountains, generally running in 

 a north and south direction, and bounded on the west by a rim of 

 lofty summits, rising far within the snow line, while the central 

 depression is but two hundred feet above tide water. 



The valleys are terribly scarred by the abrasion of their rivers, 

 which, rushing rapidly down from their mountain sources, have 

 excavated through the soft strata of the plains, the most profound 

 and gloomy chasms found on the face of the globe. 



That remarkable gorge through which Niagara river flows from 

 the cataract to Lewiston, and into which we gaze from the para- 

 pets of the Suspension Bridge with awe and shuddering, is but a 

 mere ditch in comparison with the "big canon of the Colorado." 

 This excavation is 6,000 feet deep, and is but one of many along 

 Grand, Green and Colorado rivers. 



The face of the country is still further disfigured and broken 

 by ejections of lava, which, in quite recent times, have burned and 

 scarred the country. 



Vast deserts of alkaline plains lie between the lava ridges, and 

 the smoke from smouldering; volcanos still miuofle with the clouds 

 of heaven. 



In the south-east the hydrographical basin of the Colorado occu- 

 pies about one-third of the whole. 



The annual amount of rain it receives is not equal to the fall of 

 a single shower on the Atlantic coast ; hence, the supply of water 

 to fertilize the soil must come from the river. The soil is calca- 

 reous and sandy, and when irrigated produces plentifully of such 

 crops as the Mohave and other Indians plant. It formerly sus- 

 tained a much larger population than at the present, if we correctly 

 judge from the remains of aqueducts and cities along its valleys 

 and hills. 



The second subdivision of the Pacific slope is the Utah or interior 

 basin. 



It receives its waters from short ranges of mountains, and holds 

 them in lakes having no outlet to the sea, or else its streams are 

 drank up by thirsty sands a few miles from the foot of the hills. 

 It is only where streams supply water for irrigation that supplies 

 of food can be raised for its inhabitants. Into this basin forty 

 thousand religious enthusiasts have found retreat and seclusion, 



