THE OYEELAND ROUTE COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEN. 13 



Although designed to accommodate foot passengers and wagons, 

 the bridge has never been so used. Local traffic passes over the 

 bridge of the Omaha & Council Bluffs Street Railway Co., half a 

 mile farther north, and beyond this is a drawbridge of the Omaha 

 Bridge & Terminal Co., over which pass the trains of the Ilhnois 

 Central Railroad. 



The Missouri is the muddiest river in the Mississippi VaUe^^; it 

 carries more sdt than any other large river in the United States 

 except possibly the Rio Grande and the Colorado. For every square 

 mile of country drained it carries downstream 381 tons of dissolved 

 and suspended matter each year. In other words, the river gathers 

 annually from the country that it drains more than 123,000,000 tons 

 of silt and soluble matter, some of which it distributes over the flood 

 plains below to form productive agricultural lands but most of which 

 finds its way at last to the Gulf of Mexico. 



It is by means of data of tliis kind that geologists compute the 

 rate at which the lands are being eroded away. It has been shown 

 that Missouri River is lowering the sm-face of the land drained by 

 it at the rate of 1 foot in 6,036 j^ears. The surface of the United 

 States as a Avhole is now being worn down at the rate of 1 foot in 

 9,120 years. It has been estimated that if this erosive action of 

 the streams of the United States could have been concentrated on 

 the Isthmus of Panama it would have dus in 73 davs the canal 

 which has just been completed, after 10 years' work, with the most 

 "Dowerful annliances vet devised bv man. 



Nebraska lies mainly in the Great Plains province of the western 

 United States, in altitudes ranging from 842 to 4,849 feet above 



sea level, and is drained to the Missouri through the 

 Nebraska. Niobrara, the Platte, and many minor streams. The 



annual rainfall in the State ranges from 13.30 to 

 31.65 inches and averages 23.84 inches. Dry farming is general and 

 large crops of corn, wheat, and oats are raised. Nebraska claims 

 a greater variety of native grasses than any other State in the Union, 

 their number amounting to more than 200, of which 150 are valu- 



able for forage. In the western part of the State some hrigation is 



practiced. 



Nebraska is primarily an agricultural State and has been called 

 ^^a State without a mine," but it does contribute to the comitry's 

 mineral production by some utilization of its clay resources, by a 

 considerable output of sand, gravel, and building stone, and by a 

 practical monopoly of the country's production of volcanic ash, or 

 pumice. The packing industry is large. 



The State includes 77,520 square miles and in 1910 had a popula- 

 tion of 1,192,214. 



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