"[...]with timber. The portion, also, on the western side of the Mississippi, as far as the 98th Meridian, including the States of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, and portions of the territory of Kansas and Nebraska, are fertile, though abounding in prairies, and subject occasionally to droughts. But the whole space to the west, between the 98th meridian and the Rocky Mountains, is a barren waste, over which the eye may roam to the extent of the visible horizon with scarcely an object to break the monotony. From the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, with the exception of the rich but narrow belt along the ocean, the country may also be considered, in comparison with other portions of the United States, a wilderness, unfitted for the uses of the husbandman; although in some of the mountain valleys, as at Salt Lake, by means of irrigation, a precarious supply of food may[...]".
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