WM. H. BREWER. 29 



an idea that the causes are in the structure of the coun - 

 try, that there is a veritable basin, a sort of sunken area 

 in the interior of the continent, with a rim around it so 

 that the rivers must run inland, a mountain rim so high, 

 that the waters cannot by any possibility get over the 

 edge and flow outward to the great ocean, where most of 

 the rivers of the earth empty. They think that it is the 

 high rim makes the "basin " and turns the waters away 

 from the sea to evaporate from the salt lakes or playas, 

 or sink 'in the sands of the desert. 



This misconception is intensified by the fact, that most 

 of the travelers who see any portion of it at all, cross on 

 some of the routes to California. Groing westward, they 

 cross first the great mountain chain, then the Wasatch, 

 then descend into the basin, through which the road runs 

 many hundred miles, and then climb the great and still 

 higher Sierra Nevada which rises like a wall on the west- 

 ern side. These great mountain chains seem barrier 

 enough to hold back the water : they seem suiRcient 

 cause why the rivers do not reach the ocean. 



But the fact is, it is not a basin of which the rim is the 

 essential feature. In places the rim is very low, merely 

 sandhills, scarcely raised above the level of the ocean ; 

 and in many places it is actually on a plain, scarcely 

 discernible to the naked eye. The region is not a basin 

 in any other sense in which we use that word except that 

 the water does not run out of it. The real cause is in 

 the climate and not in the topography of the country or 

 its geological structure. The cause is in the sky above 

 it and not the rocks beneath it. It is the scanty rain and 

 dry air that give it its distinctive character. 



I am making a long introduction of elementary physical 

 geography, but this is necessary for an understanding of 

 what I have to say later. If there was rain enough, 

 such an annual rainfall, for example, as we have, no one 

 would speak of the Great Basin. There would then be 



