THE TRUTH ABOUT CALIFORNIA 



Cheap land, valuable surrounding resources, and a cli- 

 mate similar to that in which our race has flourished 

 best, would seem to combine in favoring a large and 

 rapid future growth. 



The more southern body east of the Sierras lies chiefly 

 in Inyo county. This is also at the early stage of de- 

 velopment. The climate is milder, though still temper- 

 ate rather than semi-tropical, than in the more northern 

 counties. There are many beautiful valleys and an 

 abundance of water, timber, and minerals. 



Lack of railroad facilities and remoteness from large 

 cities account for the backwardness of development in 

 these attractive regions on the eastern slope of the moun- 

 tains. They present to-day the finest field for develop- 

 ment in California, and one of the finest in the Uni- 

 ted States. There can be no question that during the 

 next century they will become the homes of hundreds of 

 thousands of people and the seat of a manifold industrial 

 life. 



The fourth field open to future conquest is the Colo- 

 rado Desert most famous of waste-places in America. It 

 is popularly regarded as an empire of hopeless sterility, 

 the silence of which will never be broken by the voices 

 of men. As the transcontinental traveller views it from 

 his flying train it presents an aspect indeed forbidding. 

 Neither animal life nor human habitation breaks its level 

 monotony. It stretches from mountain-range to moun- 

 tain-range, a brown waste of dry and barren soil. And 

 yet it only awaits the touch of water and of labor to 

 awaken into opulent life. Only the most superficial view 

 of it is caught from the passing trains, while those who 

 have penetrated into its heart and across the boundary 



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