458 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



GRAZING RESOURCES. 



The description of the "broad, grassy plains " given in the foregoing 

 pages attests their capacity to sustain animal life. For cattle, sheep, 

 horses, and mules they are a natural pasture iu summer, with, in many 

 parts, hay cured standing for winter. The famed pampas, with their 

 great extremes of wet and drought, cannot bear comparison .with our 

 Western Plains. For grazing purposes, the habitable character of our 

 vast traditional " desert " is generally conceded, and hence it need not 

 be enlarged on here. 



IMMIGRATION. 



The settlers come singly and in groups, in families and colonies. It 

 is not a crusade of fanatics, or a raid of fillibusters, but the measured 

 march of earnest men and women seeking homes. The extension of 

 settlements westward from the " frontier," and eastward from the moun- 

 tains, must go on. Population increases, and lands are needed. Hence 

 the occupancy of the lands along and near the line of this railway is an 

 assured fact of the early future. It is an eventuality not created by the 

 power of this corporation, but growing out of the circumstances of the 

 nation, and the distribution of our landed resources. 



It will seem to many a vast work to spread settlements over the " great 

 Western Plains." To force such settlements would be a large task ; but 

 no forcing is needed. The facilities provided, the .lands available, and 

 the settlers throng in of themselves. Those who have doubts of the 

 event should remember, 1st, that permanent settlements have already 

 reached more than two-fifths the distance from Kansas City to Denver ; 

 2d, that the facilities as well as the necessity for the future extension of 

 settlements are day by day increasing; 3d, that the difficulties and 

 hardships of frontier life diminish as means to overcome them are mul- 

 tiplied ; 4th, that with a railway in operation the spread of settlements 

 becomes a problem greatly less difficult than the construction of the 

 road itself. 



