30 THE GREAT BASIN. 



no salt lakes there, nor salt marshes, nor playas, nor 

 deserts. Where the salt lakes now are and where the 

 worst deserts glimmer with fervent heat, there would 

 then be great fresh water lakes, with rivers flowing into 

 them and out of them, fertile valleys would abound, and 

 the outlets of the many lakes would flow in various 

 directions to the sea. They would overflow the rim 

 in many places. There would be several river systems, 

 and the waters would find their way to the ocean by 

 various routes ; some would pass north into the Colum- 

 bia River, others find their way to the Pacific through 

 the Klamath River ; possibly other passes in the Sierra 

 Nevada would then be river valleys, while large streams 

 would flow southward and empty into the Gulf of Cali- 

 fornia. 



I have plotted this region on a large map, which I 

 show you. It extends over 12 degrees of latitude, or 

 about 900 miles from north to south, and is about 520 

 miles wide in its widest part. Nearly the whole of it 

 lies within the United States, a little tongue, on its 

 southern portion, extending over the line into Lower 

 California. Its nothern portion is in about the latitude 

 of Portland, Me. ; its southern, about as far south as the 

 northern lifUe of Florida. I estimate that it contains 

 about 217,850 square mile's. This is a little larger than 

 Mr. Russell of the U. S. Geological Survey has estimated 

 it. 



Let us compare this area with that of some of the 

 Eastern states. It is more than four times as large as 

 the whole state of New York, and just about 45 times as 

 large as the state of Connecticut. The whole state of 

 Nevada and most of Utah lies within it, and it extends 

 into California and Oregon. 



The topography of the region is very varied. Indeed, 

 numerous mountain chains traverse it, having mostly a 

 north and south direction ; and between them are valleys, 



