PREFACE. 
By Grorce Oris Suirn. 
The United States of America comprise an area so vast in extent 
and so diverse in natural features as well as in characters due to 
human agency that the American citizen whoeknows thoroughly his 
own country must have traveled widely and observed wisely. To 
“know America first” is a patriotic obligation, but to meet this obliga- 
tion 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 
handbook that will answer the questions that come to his mind so 
readily along the way. Furthermore, the aim of such a guide should 
be to stimulate the eye in the selection of the essentials in, the scene 
that so rapidly unfolds itself in the crossing of the continent. In 
recognition 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 in 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 series is to present authoritative 
information that may enable the reader to realize adequately the 
* Guidebook of the western United States: Part A, The Northern Pacific Route, 
with a side trip to Yellowstone Park (Bulletin 611); Part B, The Overland Route, 
with a side trip to Yellowstone Park (Bulletin 612); Part C, The Santa Fe Route, 
with a side trip to the Grand Canyon of the Colorado (Bulletin 613); Part D, The 
Shasta Route and Coast Line (Bulletin 614). 
3 
