Salt Lake and Los Angeles 155 Nevada, Central, and Idaho 155 NEVADA A LAND OF GREAT POSSIBILITIES 155 The State of Nevada. Boundaries and Area. Nevada is formed of the region of country formerly known as Western Utah. The whole of Utah, prior to its acquisition by the United States, was a portion of the Mexican Department of Alta California. All this vast region was acquired from Mexico under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which was consummated in 1848, and which treaty also gave to the United States, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and a part of Colorado. Nevada was constituted a Territory in March, 1861, and was admitted into the Union as a State in October, 1864. The State extends from the 35th to the 42d degree of north latitude, and from the 114th to the 120th degree west longitude from Greenwich. The State in its greatest dimensions is 420 miles long by 360 miles wide. Nevada is bounded on the north by Idaho and Oregon, east by Utah and Arizona, and south and west by California. Previous to its acquisition by the United States, the region now constituting the State of Nevada was wholly occupied by tribes of wild Indians. The country was then known only to a few white men, trappers and Indian traders, whose business at certain seasons led them into what was then almost a _terra incognito_, and which was marked upon the maps of that day as the “Great American Desert,” or the “Unexplored Region.”