ADDRESS 



BY 



WALTER HOUGH, 



VICE-PRESIDENT AND CHAIRMAN OF SECTION H FOR 1905. 



PUEBLO ENVIRONMENT. 



The great city of New Orleans lies near the threshold of a 

 portion of the continent to which the term mysterious is often 

 applied. With good reason the southwest receives the appel- 

 lation ; for its treasures of natural scenery lavished with incon- 

 ceivable largess, the picturesque aboriginal population who 

 retain in great part the customs of immemorial centuries, and 

 the silent mounds which are what remains of the homes of 

 the ancient people, all speak of the Old New World cradled 

 and fostered in the bosom of the inaccessible mountains, till it be- 

 came a representation of the man's progress toward civilization. 



The southern portion of the Rocky Mountain Highland has 

 two chief geographic features, the one a depression called the 

 Great Interior Basin and the other the Pueblo plateau. The 

 latter may be subdivided into the Rio Grande valley, the Col- 

 rado plateau, and the Gila Slope, lying in the four political divi- 

 sions named Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. 



This plateau, which contains the bulk of the elevation on the 

 western half of the United States, is mainly embraced in the 

 triangle lying between the eastern side of the Rocky moun- 

 tains and the Rio Colorado, the western side bounded by 

 Great Basin. Its slope is from north to south in the eastern 

 portion where the Rio Grande drains the trough lying just 

 east of the continental uplift, but the main slope is toward 

 the southwest and is drained by the Colorado and its 



