THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA 



Thus gradually, and attended by many misrepresenta- 

 tions and strange misconceptions, which inevitably scat- 

 tered wide the seeds of prejudice, the arid region emerged 

 from absolute obscurity and stood partially revealed to 

 men. It was not, however, until a few pioneer settle- 

 ments had demonstrated undreamed-of results, nor until 

 Major John W. Powell, by utterances as daring as his 

 explorations, had furnished a scientific basis for a brood 

 of new hopes, that the real character of Arid America 

 began to glow, like the belated sun through a morning 

 fog, upon the popular imagination. 



The superiority of the western half-continent over its 

 eastern counterpart may not be expressed in a word. It 

 is, rather, a matter for patient unfolding through a study 

 of natural conditions over wide areas, and a scrutiny of 

 the human institutions which are the inevitable product 

 of this environment. Aridity, in the elementary sense, 

 is purely an affair of climate. That it is also the germ of 

 new industrial and social systems, with far-reaching 

 possibilities in the fields of ethics and politics, will be 

 demonstrated further on in these pages. But the first 

 item of importance in the assets of the new West is 

 climate. 



When an inhabitant of the Atlantic seaboard, or of 

 the shores of the Great Lakes, or of the lowlands of the 

 South, can no longer withstand the penetration of cold, 

 damp winds, or the malarious breath of swamps, his 

 family physician sends him to the arid West. Through- 

 out its length and breadth it is one vast sanitarium. 

 Its pure, sweet air and sunny skies aro instinct with the 

 breath of life. They put new heart into the drooping 

 invalid, prolonging his life, and, if he be not too far 



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