Review of Recent Geological Literature. 5 
5 
The characteristics of the climate are given in seven deficiencies; 
so named because it is one purpose of the paper to show that “the 
high plains, except in insignificant degree, are non-irrigable” and that 
therefore “for general agriculture they are irreclaimable.” The rain- 
fall, even on the southern part, the “staked plains,” is fully equal to 
that which produces the phenomenal wheat crops in the valley of the 
Red River of the North, but despite this the climate is essentially 
arid, as explained in the following summary of deficiencies. (1) The 
summer rains are, as a rule, violent, brief and local. (2) The rain- 
fall of different years differs greatly, an average of three years out of 
five showing great deficiencies. (3) The normal summer tempera- 
ture is notably greater. (4) The relative humidity is notably less. 
(5) There are more hours of sunshine. (6) There is more wind, 
which, during the summer is prevailingly from the south, hence warm 
and dry, whereas, during the same season in the Northwest the pre- 
vailing winds are northerly. (7) As a result of the foregoing, eva- 
poration is greater. 
The history of the effort to farm the plains without irrigation in 
this so-called ‘‘rain-belt” is graphically described. It began after a 
series of wet years, 1883-85, culminated in 1893 and ended in disaster. 
The chimera that the climate was changing or could be made to change 
by a general cultivation of the soil, induced many to hold on in des- 
peration, who might otherwise have abandoned the hopeless under- 
taking sooner. 
The dream of general irrigation, indulged in by some, is shown 
to have no basis of sober calculation. The author takes stock care- 
fully of the run-off and of the possibilities of storage and makes the 
estimate, that of the 800 million acres in the arid region, 350 millions 
are cultivable and of these, there aré 60 millions which are irrigable, 
that is, seven per cent. of the total arid region or seventeen per cent. 
of the cultivable portion. Of these €0 million acres, four million have 
actually been irrigated. The irrigable area of the high plains them- 
selves is very small and that actually irrigated is quite insignificant. 
Estimates of what may be expected from artesian wells are un- 
promising. The catchment area in the mountains is small, and the 
Dakota sandstone, the chief water-bearing stratum, is not continuous 
under the plains. Where it does produce, in some valleys, the yield is 
small and there is no promise for irrigation, while “for irrigation of 
the uplands, there is no artesian resource whatever.” The Meade ar- 
tesian basin is described at length. In this and a few other basins 
where artesian conditions appear, the supply of water is neither from 
the mountains nor in the Dakota sandston. “On the contrary, it is 
found that there is no universally extended artesian stratum, and no 
rise in wells whatever, except where, under a rare combination of pe- 
culiar and favoring conditions, it is locally developed from the or- 
dinary ground water.” The peculiar conditions of this local develop- 
ment are (1) A topographic basin whose bottom is below the general 
level of the ground water; (2) A relatively impervious stratum of clay, 
