FOREST BELTS OF WESTERN KANSAS AND NEBRASKA. 
TERRITORY INCLUDED. 
The territory covered by this study embraces Kansas and Nebraska 
west of the ninety-ninth meridian and Colorado east of the one hun- 
dred and fourth meridian. The eastern boundary runs close to 
Kearney, Nebr., and Larned, Kans., the western about 50 miles east 
of Pueblo, Colo. The northern limit is the forty-third parallel, which 
forms the boundary between Nebraska and South Dakota, and the 
southern is the thirty-seventh parallel, the southern boundary of 
Kansas and Colorado. The area included within these hmits is 
approximately 47,000 square miles in Nebraska, 34,000 square miles in 
Kansas, and 28,000 square miles in Colorado, or a total of 109,000 
square miles. 
PHYSICAL CONDITIONS. 
TOPOGRAPHY. 
In its broad outline western Kansas is a gently sloping plain, with 
little diversity of surface except. that produced by the numerous 
water courses, whose beds vary from a few feet to 200 feet below the 
general upland level. The elevation ranges from about 1,500 feet 
above sea level near the eastern limit to 4,000 feet on the western 
boundary. There is some increase in altitude from south to north, 
but much less than from east to west. 
Western Nebraska is much more rugged than western Kansas. 
Elevations run from 1,845 feet at Bloomington, on the Republican 
River, to 5,300 feet near the Wyoming line, south of the North Platte 
River. In Cheyenne, Banner, and Scotts Bluff counties and in Sioux, 
Dawes, and Shannon counties, along the extensive line of hilly bluffs 
which stretch from eastern Wyoming across northwestern Nebraska 
and into South Dakota, and which are known as Pine Ridge, the coun- 
try becomes semimountainous, and is characterized by precipitous 
bluffs, towering buttes, and oftentimes deeply cut, impassable canyons. 
One of the most striking buttes is Scotts Bluff, which rises 780 feet 
above the level of the North Platte River. In southwestern Nebraska 
only are there comparatively level high plains like those of eastern 
Colorado and western Kansas. 
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