OREGON" SHO?T LINE OGDEN" TO YELLOWSTONE. 135 



valley, and a seed-cleaning mill stands near the Idaho Falls station. 

 Raw land with water right sold in 1914 for $40 to $60 an acre, and 

 improved land brought $65 to $160 an acre, depending on the unprove- 



ments 



money makers in this rc; 

 le mountains in summer 



pastured at the valley ranches in winter. The honeybee is respected 

 and encouraged to greater industry. One man in this vicinity has 

 600 colonies of bees and keeps 4 tons of honey for their winter feed. 

 Another bee keeper in the valley has 3,000 colonies. A factory at 

 Idaho Falls extracts, stores, and ships hundreds of tons of alfalfa and 

 sweet-clover honey every year. 



A round stone tower (used as a tool house), which stands on the 

 hiwn at the north end of the Idaho Fails station shows the fitness of 

 the local lavas, rhyohte and basalt, for use as building stone. 



Soon after leaving the city ^ the train passes the firet beet-sugar 

 f actorv built in Idaho. ^+ "^"'^ orc^nie'A in 1 Q0?J at a, cost of a milhon 



dollars and has added much to the' growth of Idaho Falls. Lincohi, 



ettlcment of 300 people around the sugar factory 



branch line. 



ding 



Far to the 



-hi' 



and on the west, 12 miles from 



St. Leon. -^ ^ j^^^ broad, shghtly sag-topped cinder cone, 



ogden ISO miles. ^^^ch holds a bowl-shapcd depression about a quarter 

 of a mile in diameter. Near this cone in 1914 there was a single 

 tract of about 2,000 acres of dry-farm wheat. 



The sagebrush plain just north of Ucon suggests \^diat the whole 

 valley once was, and the fertile fields already passed show what can 



be done by irrigation. Very httle of the soil of the 

 ^*^'^"- Snake River plain is derived from the basalt on wliich 



Elevation 4,799 feet. -^ j- 

 Ogden 192 miles. 



from 



lava, and the exposed surface of the lava shows prac- 

 tically no trace of disintegration. The soil near the rivers, on their 

 preseiit or former flood plains, is largely river deposit, and that near 

 the mountains is mountain waste, but the fine soil that covers the 

 plains at a distance from the mountains is mainly wind-blown dust, 

 which has accumulated gradually in the centuries since the basalt 

 was poured out The sources of the dust are the naked cliffs m 

 the mountains, talus slopes, sti-eam deposits on the margin of the 

 plains, and volcanic ashes. The Market Lake Craters (see p. 137), 

 truncated volcanic cones 10 miles northwest of the track, and other 

 volcanoes of that type threw out large quantities of volcanic dust.^ A 

 vigorous growth of sagebrush attests the good quah 



Idaho Falls give the distance 



