GREAT BASIN PROBLEMS 
225 
total population within the Great Basin is smaller than the average 
^‘large” American city. Nevertheless, the potential wealth in nat¬ 
ural resources is unsurpassed by any part of the earth. The eco¬ 
nomic and social future of the Great Basin is therefore inevitably 
connected with the coming development of the country. 
The research problems of the Great Basin, as of any other sec¬ 
tion of the world, fall into two classes; those pertaining to the en¬ 
couragement of research, and those derived from the peculiar 
environment of the region. Both classes clamor for solution. 
The early pioneers who settled in the Great Basin faced the 
apparently hopeless task of conquering a forbidding desert, which 
pre-pioneer explorers had declared impossible of reclamation. 
There was little time for aught else than the battle between man 
and desert. Yet, education and the things that flow from it were 
in the minds of the pioneers. The Utah pioneers for example, 
founded the University of Utah in 1850, three years after their 
arrival. At present, each of the Great Basin states has a State 
University. In Utah there is also an Agricultural College and in 
the Basin are several technical schools and many private institu¬ 
tions of higher learning. The love of education is tremenduous. 
The Great Basin universities probably have the largest per capita 
attendance in the country. The sparsely settled Great Basin states 
are giving liberally for higher education, but the large demand for 
higher education make it practically impossible to do much more 
than to teach the eager youths who hunger for knowledge. Small 
grants are made for research in all the Great Basin states, larger 
in proportion to income than in other states of the Union, but ab¬ 
solutely small and insufficient to meet the demands of this region 
of vast possibilities. 
The first settler fought the good fight and made the desert hos¬ 
pitable ; the miner followed; and at last timid capital built upon the 
labors of the pioneers and opened the tremendous wealth of the 
mountains. But, the profits were sent east and west, to the home 
of capital, and little remained in the Great Basin. Huge offices 
and vast industrial enterprises have been founded in the East with 
wealth won from the Great Basin. Even the Western miner, sud¬ 
denly a millionaire, took his treasure chest and himself to the cen¬ 
ter of population. There are a few noble exceptions, but the rule 
holds. 
