PROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 837 



and there exhibit the moral phenomenon, of a large population 

 otherwise not noticeable, deliberately returning to oriental and 

 heathenish connubial customs. They prove the fertility of the 

 soil by raising twelve bushels of cereals to each inhabitant of its 

 cities and plains. 



The larger part of this basin must be written forever unin- 

 habitable, unless fountains in the desert be opened by artesian 

 wells, as upon the prairies of Illinois, 



Sacramento Basin. 

 Lying west of the Sierra Nevada there is a long narrow valley 

 drained by the Salina, San Joachin, Sacramento and Klamath 

 rivers, which is exceedingly fertile, and destined yet to become 

 the great vine growing portion of America. To it the Pacific 

 yields its animal supply of moisture, and its warm winds give a 

 mean annual temperature much above the same parallel of the 

 Atlantic slope. Twenty bushels of cereals per individual is the 

 ratio to its inhabitants, although it has been rather a mining than 

 an agricultural valley. Its capacity to support a population in 

 the future is limited, not by its resources, but by its narrow 

 boundaries. 



Columbia River Basin. 



This is the largest sub-basin of the Pacific slope, having within 

 it more than 308,000 square miles — more than twice the amount 

 of the southern portion. By the Cascade mountains it is divided 

 into an inner and outer system of valleys. Its mountain ranges 

 are not as high, its river valleys are broader and longer, its streams 

 are more perennial, and its capacity for agriculture greater than 

 the southern. The isothermal line of 60° mean of summer and 

 40° mean of winter range through all of its valleys, giving it the 

 climate of Virginia, although twelve degrees of latitude further 

 north. 



It is estimated by those authorities who have had the best 

 opportunities for forming a correct judgment, that not over one- 

 fourth of the entire 732,000 square miles of the Pacific basin is 

 capable of being cultivated. Its future agricultural population 

 can never be very large when compared with other and more 

 favored portions of the continent We must look to other sources 

 for a dense population. Fortunately we need not look outside of 

 its own bounds. 



