The Rocky Mountains [pp. 520-530]

T HE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
citizen holds life, liberty, and property at the will and pleasure
of any army officer in whose military district he may happen
to be found."
These are the words of one of the co-ordinate branches of
the Government, of the highest legal authority known to the
officials and people of the United States; uttered under the
most solemn responsibility, and a deep conviction of the deplorable crisis at which the country had arrived.
On the breaking out of the English revolution of 1688,
Sergeant Maynard, a luminary of the English bar, hastened to
join the standard of William, Prince of Orange; who, on seeing him, bluntly said: "From your extreme age, you must have
outlived all the lawyers of your day." "If your Highness had
not come quickly," he answered, "I should have outlived, not
only the lawyers, but the laws." Less happy than the Nestor
of the English bar, the Chief Justice now found that, in his
extreme old age. he had outlived the law.
ART. II.-THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
THE construction of two great trans-continental railroads,
under the auspices and with the aid of the Government of the
nation, has drawn the attention of the American people to the
extensive plains and stupendous mountain systems which lie between the Missouri river and the Pacific ocean to an unwonted
degree. Both are yet very imperfectly understood. Both have
been described so often by men whose impressions were drawn
more from their immediate conditions and surroundings, their
weariness, anxieties and cares, than from more extended and
comprehensive observation, that very erroneous reports have
been made and wrong impressions given to the public mind.
For example: in our earlier maps we had, between the Missoutri and the mountains, an "Unexplored Region." In the next
series we had "the Great American Desert," stretching from the
Platte to the Red River-a vast tract of territory, almost every
acre of which is now known to be a region of unrivalled beauty
and fertility. Nearly all of Kansas was embraced in this mythical desert, together with much of the country lying west,
southwest and south of that peerless commonwealth, the greater
portion of which is unsurpassed on this continent for its excellence of soil, salubrity of climate, its capabilities for arable and
pastoral agriculture, and its ever. varying beauties.
If the "plains" were so misunderstood, it is not surprising
that we should have received equally erroneous impressions of
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