THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



15 



tribuiing the abundant waters of the 

 mountains over the parched and desert 

 plains. Some imaginative New Yorker 

 has suggested a vast scheme of canalizing 

 the entire West. This may prove less of 

 a dream than a wise possibility in the 

 future. It may lead to the salvation of 

 Mississippi from its destructive and un- 

 controllable floods. 



All of which but brings to mind that 

 the man or the men whose magnitude of 

 mind can conceive a plan or plans vast 

 enough to handle the Mississippi problem 

 can find in the West a task more sure to 

 lead to enduring fame than the successful 

 rail roading of the mountains and the 

 deserts in the decade from 1860 to 1870. 



The water courses of the West have 

 never been made serviceable to commerce 

 or industry to any considerable extent; 

 yet the Columbia offers the same possibili- 

 ties as the Ohio, and the precipitous 

 streams of the Rockies are almost as full 

 of electric power as the falls of Niagara. 



The coasts and ports of the Pacific and 

 the Gulf of Mexico are new to commerce 

 comparatively, but the Gulf is already 

 wresting traffic from the Atlantic and 



from the great lakes, and San Francisco is 

 superseding New York as a, distributing 

 point for Asiatic tea and spices, while 

 Puget Sound cannot furnish ships enough 

 to carry the grain that is moving from 

 Western America to the Orient. 



Where ocean commerce is, there busi- 

 ness is, and there, too, is place for in- 

 creased population. 



For the men who love adventure the op- 

 portunities of the western mountains are 

 only less than . those of the Andes and 

 more extended and diversified than those 

 of the Alps. 



And so on through the ramifications of 

 the occupations, pleasures and vicissitudes 

 of an independent and newly-founded em- 

 pire, run the inducements of the West 

 for new population. The resources are 

 as yet only half discovered ; only one- 

 thirtieth developed. The monetary possi- 

 bilities haye been merely prospected, and 

 the experience of railroads and all the big 

 industries but prove how much more rich 

 and profitable any of them might be if the 

 West contained thirty, forty or fifty mil- 

 lion of people where now it contais but ten 

 million. 



HOME OF JAMES M. WELLS, PLYMOUTH COLONY. IDAHO. 



