t A 



PREFACE. 



By George Otis Smith. 



The United States of America comprise an nrea so vast in extent 

 and so diverse in natural features as well as in characters due to 

 human agency that the American citizen who knows thorouglilyhis own 

 comitry must have traveled widely and observed wisely. To ^^know 

 America first'' is a patriotic obHgation^ but to meet this obligation 

 the railroad traveler needs to have his eyes directed toward the more 

 important or essential things within his field of vision and then to 

 have much that he sees explained by what is unseen in the swift 

 passage of the train. Indeed, many things that attract his attention 

 are inexplicable except as the story of the past is available to enable 

 him to interpret the present. Herein lie the value and the charm of 

 history, whether human or geologic. 



The present stimulus given to travel in the home country will 

 encourage many thousands of Americans to study geography at first 

 hand. To make this study most profitable the traveler needs a hand- 

 book that wlU answer the questions that come to his mind so readily 

 along the way. Furthermore, the aim of such a guide should be to 

 stimidate the eye in the selection of the essentials in the scene that 

 so rapidly unfolds itself in the crossing of the continent. In recog- 

 nition of the opportunity afforded in 1915 to render service of this 

 kind to an unusually large number of American citizens as well as to 

 visitors from other countries, the United States Geological Survey 

 has prepared a series of guidebooks^ covering four of the older railroad 

 routes west of the Mississippi. 



These books are educational m purpose, but the method adopted is 

 to entertain the traveler by making more interesting what he sees 

 from the car window. The plan of the scries is to present authori- 

 tative information that may enable the reader to realise adequately 

 the scenic and material resources of the region he is traversing, to 

 comprehend correctly the basis of its development, and above all to 



^ Guidebook of the western United States: Part A, Northern Pacific Route, with a 

 side trip to Yellowstone Park (Bulletin 611); Part B, Overland Route, with a side trip 



with 



and 



tin 614), 



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