GEOLOGICAL SUEVEY OF THE TEEEITOEIES. 223 



that wbifth has overwhelmed many once beautiful and fertile regions of 

 Europe awaits an important part of the territory of the United States 

 unless prompt measures are taken to check the action of the destructive 

 causes already in operation.' This last remark applies with greater 

 force to a large share of our own State than many of us are aware of. 



" In many countries where rains are of frequent occurrence during the 

 summer season, keeping the surface of the soil moist, vegetation, how- 

 ever delicate and tender, once started in the spring of the year, con- 

 tinues to grow until checked by the succeeding autumn or winter. By 

 this time the roots have obtained such a hold on the ground as to secure 

 continued life, unless destroyed by artificial causes. Not so in our State. 

 The dry season here follows so rapidly after the wet and germinating 

 period, that, without irrigation or cultivation, tender and delicate plants, 

 like young trees of all kinds, grown from seed lying on the surface, as 

 they fall from the parent trees, are almost always dried up and destroyed 

 before they are four months old. Hence it is that a section of country 

 once stripped of trees and shrubbery, in our State, always remains naked. 

 Once a prairie, always a prairie, until art comes to the assistance of 

 nature. Hence it is that wheresoever our forests have been cut down 

 and cleared away, allowing the rays of the sun to fall directly on the 

 soil, so few 3^oung trees, or trees of the ' second growth,' are to be 

 found." 



This quotation contains some remarkable statements and admissions 

 by one who is a citizen of the section described ; but the statements are 

 true, and the warnings therein given are for the best interests of his 

 State, and should be well pondered, not only by the legislators of Cali- 

 fornia, but also by our national statesmen. 



Strike out the local names from this quotation, and almost every 

 statement in it will apply with equal force to the entire Eocky Mountain 

 region. So far as I have seen this section, the distribution of the forests 

 is similar to that of California ; they are isolated, found upon the higher 

 mountain groups and ranges, and surrounded by broad, timberless 

 spaces. As is well known to all who have any knowledge of the West, 

 the plains which lie along the east flank of the great range, stretching 

 eastward toward the Mississippi, are almost entirely treeless, the nar- 

 row fringes skirting a few of the streams not being of sufficient import- 

 ance to be taken into consideration. This belt, which varies in width 

 from two to four hundred miles, extends from the British possessions on 

 the north to Mexico on the south, a distance of over twelve hundred 

 miles, and includes an area of about four hundred thousand square 

 miles. The lumber for every house built upon this broad space must be 

 transported from one side or the other ; so with every railroad-tie, tim- 

 ber for fencing, and for all the purposes where timber or lumber of any 

 kind is required, unless it is cultivated and grown in artificial groves 

 and forests. 



ISTew Mexico also presents a very large treeless area. Around the 

 sources of the Pecos, along the eastern and southern rim of San Luis 

 Valley, on the Mimbres and Guadalupe Mountains, and in the north- 

 western part of the Territory are found the principal forests affording 

 valuable timber, while the rest of its area is generally without forests 

 or trees of any value except for fuel. Fortunately, the forests are gen- 

 erally in the vicinity of the narrow agricultural areas, and in some 

 instances the trees are large and fine, making good lumber ; but most 

 of the older towns and villages have to procure their lumber and fuel at 

 a considerable distance. 



Colorado is a comparatively new Territory, and its mountains afford 



