60 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



The Platte drains principally from the northwest. Its water shed 

 on the south is generally only a few miles from its valley, while on 

 the norrh it extends in places to within thirty-six miles of the north 

 line of the State. 



If the bottoms and channel of the Platte were favorable for it 

 there would be an abundance of water for navigation. It is next 

 to impossible for railroads going to the mountains to do all the 

 business that will be demannedof them when the Platte Valley and 

 the mountain regions are once developed. Cheaper freights than 

 these that railroads furnish will also be demanded. Then a canal 

 can be built along side of the Platte to receive its waters from the 

 mountains to the Missouri. It could be made as the Suez canal 

 was, largely from artificial stone. For such a canal the valley of 

 the Platte is one of the best in the world. No one now living may 

 see such a work, but Nebraska is capable of sustaining a population 

 so dense that such a canal will be a necessity. 



The Republican River rises in the Colorado Plains, near range 

 49 west of the 6th principal meridian. Here anciently there was 

 a lake whose basin was about four miles across. The outlet, or 

 river draining it, however, long since cut down the narrow rim 

 and drained the lake. Its head here in the old lake is 4,050 

 feet above the sea. A few small springs new rise below the 

 site of this old lake, and produce a tiny streamlet a foot across. 

 Other streams, about or nearly as large, soon join it, but at 

 the State line I could still, when there in the spring of 1877, with 

 D. N. Smith, jump across it. Along this part of its course there 

 are a few beautiful little lakelets into which and from which it 

 flows. Here the water is cool, and clear as crystal. When it re- 

 ceives the waters of the Arickaree, about seven miles east of the 

 State line, it assumes its characteristic character. It now becomes 

 shallow and sandy, and in places rapid. Its principal tributary in 

 this portion of the State is the Republican Fork, and comes from 

 the southwest. Its junction with the Republican is in range 38, 

 west. Frenchman's Fork is an important tributary that rises in 

 Colorado, and, flowing southeast, joins the Republican at Culbert- 

 son. After this the most important tributary from the southwest 

 is the Beaver. Red Willow and Medecine Creeks, from the north- 

 west, are also important tributaries. An immense number of small 

 creeks flow, every few miles, into the Republican, especially from 

 the north. This river, unlike the Platte, increases regularly in 



