THE IRRIGATION AGE. 423 



of the State where the question is most important can be seen by 

 noting the areas of unoccupied land in each of the land office districts 

 of the State, as reported by the general land office at the close of the 

 fiscal year ended June 30, 1898. The figures follow: 



Vacant land, 

 Land office. acres. 



Alliance 2.478,798 



Broken Bow 2,678.630 



Lincoln 19. 131 



McCook 208,978 



North Platte 796,010 



Vacant land, 

 Land office. acres. 



O'Xeill 764,295 



Sidney 763.620 



Valentine 2,838.988 



Total State 10,548.450 



South of Broken Bow the North Platte River stretches across the 

 State. North of Broken Bow is the middle Loup River. Still north 

 of that, and following closely the north boundary of the common- 

 wealth, is the Niobrara River. In their lower courses in the eastern 

 part of the State they flow through the broad valleys in which lie the 

 fertile fields that make Nebraska corn famous the world over. Fur- 

 ther west they flow for the most part through tortuous gorges which 

 they have cut in the high and undulating plateaus the grazing lands 

 which may again become disputed ground between the cowboy and 

 the plowman. 



CHARACTER OF THE SOIL. 



In their geological formation and in the character of their soil, 

 these plateaus these gold mines in the potential are of unusual in- 

 terest. The soil has been likened to the alluvial deposits in the val- 

 ley of the Nile, where Egypt's silent and mysterious stream each year 

 overflows its banks and spreads over the land a silt that has been 

 transformed into the finest powder by the action of the water in car- 

 rying it down from the river's unknown sources. 



Certain it is that the soil of the Nebraska plains is unrivaled in 

 the fineness of its texture. Pick up a bunch of dust in any road and 

 it is found impalpable as fine wheat flour. There is no grit or 

 granular substance in it. Break off a lump of baked earth from the 

 scarred face of the hillside, where the streams have plowed gullies 

 during the last rain-storm, and, on crumbling it, the same fine dust is 

 left. Nowhere is there a stone or grain of sand. 



But there is yet something that relieves the sameness of this fine 

 dust and that tells also the story of past ages when these plains that 

 now hold their faces to the sky and cry out for rain were buried under 

 fathoms of water. Even from the sides of stark, bare mounds, that 

 rise in some places a hundred feet above the level of the surrounding 

 plains, one can pick shells that have been imbedded, no one knows 

 how long, in the soil. 



These, the ranchmen and land agents say, reveal the secret of 

 the richness of the soil, that needs only a breath laden with a memory 

 of the ocean it has lost to bring waves of green and gold where once 

 were rolling waves of blue. 



