LARAMIE PLAINS. 73 



SECTION II. 



LAEAMIE PLAINS 



BY ARNOLD HAGUE. 



Physical Description. — To the westward of the Laramie Hills extends 

 a broad expanse of open, nearly level country, known as the Laramie 

 Plains, occupying the depressed area between these hills on the one side 

 and the Medicine Bow Range on the other; the former a comparatively 

 low uniform ridge, reaching scarcely more than 1,500 feet above the plain; 

 the latter a high mountain mass rising between 3,000 and 4,000 feet. 'On 

 the south, the plains are shut in near the forty-first parallel, the boundary 

 between Colorado and Wyoming, by the coming together of the Colorado 

 and Medicine Bow Eanges, and to the north by the Rattlesnake Hills, an 

 irregular mountain group beyond the limits of this exploration. To the 

 northwest, hoAvever, the plains are not entirely rimmed in, the open country 

 stretching for a long distance without any marked geographical boundary. 

 For most purposes, however, it will be well to regard the western boundary 

 of the plains as limited by the Como Ridge, just north of the Medicine 

 Bow Range, and situated at the extreme northwestern corner of the east 

 half of Map I. As thus defined, the Laramie Plains measure at least 80 

 miles in length by about 30 miles in width. 



In their broader general features, these plains bear many points of 

 resemblance to the areas of depression along the Archaean Ranges of 

 the Rocky Mountains, which stretch across Colorado southward as far as 

 New Mexico, and have been designated the parks. In the case of the 

 plains, they cover a somewhat larger extent of country, and are not in so 

 marked a manner completely enclosed by high rugged mountains. 



The Laramie Plains have an average elevation of 7,000 feet above 

 sea-level, varying from 6,800 to 7,300 feet. Thetown of Laramie, on the 



