JOHN WESLEY POWEUv DAVIS XT) 

 , LANDS OF THE ARID REGION. 



Powell's large share in promoting a correct knowledge of 

 the arid parts of the United States and their possible utiliza- 

 tion will not be realized by readers today unless they recall the 

 time when so much was said about taking the words "Great 

 American Desert" off of the map. This name was, during a 

 period of early exploration, recklessly extended over vast 

 areas of the West which are by no means completely desert; 

 but as the frontier was pushed westward half a century ago, 

 the restriction of the name was hardly less reckless than its 

 extension. The existence of a desert was actually denied, 

 although there certainly is a large space in the West and 

 Southwest truly not altogether devoid of vegetation, but per- 

 manently "desert" in the economic sense, whatever its name. 

 It was, of course, open to occupation in a limited manner, as 

 nearly all deserts are; settlers who advanced into the dry 

 country soon recognized that certain small areas in nearly 

 every part of it could be redeemed by irrigation, and that 

 much larger areas were not so barren but that wandering herds 

 of cattle could subsist on their scanty herbage, provided that 

 water was not too distant. Thus the region began to have a 

 better reputation than it deserved ; and, curiously enough, 

 about coincident with a wave of rapid immigration into the 

 pasturage area of the Great Plains in the '7o's and '8o's, there 

 was a period of increasing rainfall in that subhumid region 

 which was taken by many even by army officers, who ought 

 to have known better to result from plowing the soil, laying 

 rails, or stretching telegraph wires, and therefore regarded as 

 a permanent improvement of climate. Farming was for a 

 time successful, and this was enormously advertised. Thou- 

 sands of settlers, accustomed to farming on the moist prairies 

 of the Mississippi Valley, attempted in good faith to establish 

 themselves on the drier Plains, only to be driven away with 

 bitter disappointment and heavy loss when a few years later 

 a period of less rainfall caused the failure of their crops. 



The irrigated areas naturally had better fortune, especially 

 the larger undertaking of the Mormons in Utah and of the 

 Greeley district in Colorado. These advantageously located 



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