4 



PREFACE. 



appreciate keenly the real value of tlie country he looks out upon, 

 not as so many square miles of territory represented on the map in a 

 railroad folder by meaningless spaces, but rather as land — real estate, 

 if you please — varying widely in present appearance because differing 

 largely in its historj" and characterized by even greater variation in 

 values because possessing diversified natural resources. One region 

 may be such as to afford a livoliliood for only a pastoral people; 

 another may present opportunity for intensive agriculture; still 

 another may contain hidden stores of mineral wealth that may 

 attract large industrial development; and taken together those varied 

 resom-ces afford the promise of long-continued prosperity for this or 



that State. 



development or references to signifi 

 )verv and settlement may be interspe 



with explanations of mountain and valley or statements of geologic 



history. 



unit 



meet 



who aims to understand all that he sees. To such a traveler-reader 



gin^ 



is addressed. 



To this interpretation of our OAvai country the United States Geo- 



mulated 



investigation, and the present contribution is oidy one type of return 



unc 



Government 



In preparing the description of the coimtry traversed Dy tne uver- 

 land Route the geographic and geologic information akeady pub- 

 lished as well as unpublished material in the possession of the Geo- 

 loo-ical Survey has been utilized, but to supplement this material 

 Messrs. Lee Stone, and Gale made a field examination of the entire 

 route in 1914; ^li'- Lee w^orking between Omaha and Ogden, Mr. Stone 

 between Ogden and Yellowstone, and Mr. Gale between Ogden and 

 San Francisco. Infonnution has been furnished by Profs. J. C. 



Merriam and G. H 



the United 



is o-iveii in the text. Cooperation has been roiiilered by 



States Reclamation Service and by bureaus of the Department of 



Yoriculture, Railroad officials and other citizens have also gen- 



givcn 

 ted in 



meet 



50 of furnishing the traveler with a graphic presenta- 

 ■j of his route, the accompanying maps, 29 sheets in 

 repared, with a degree of accuracy probably never 

 in a guidebook, and their arrangement has been 

 the convenience of the reader. The special topo- 



graphic surveys necessary to complete these map 



'Wl 



