"Were it possible to break up the surface to a depth of two feet, from the ninety-seventh meridian to the mountains, and from the thirty-fifth to the forty-fifth parallel, we should have in a single season a growth of taller herbage over the entire area, less reflection of the sun's heat, more humidity in the atmosphere, more constancy in springs, pools, and streams, more frequent showers, fewer violent storms, and less caprice and fury in the winds. A single year would witness a changed vegetation and a new climate. In three years (fires kept out) there would be young trees in numerous places, and in twenty years there would be fair young forests. The description of the 'broad, grassy plains,' given in the foregoing pages, attests their capacity to sustain animal life. For cattle, sheep, horses, and mules, they are a natural pasture in summer, with (in many parts) hay cured standing for winter. The famed Pampas, with their great extremes of wet and drought, can not bear comparison with our western plains. For grazing purposes, the habitable character of our vast traditional 'desert' is generally conceded, and hence it need not be enlarged on here." THE SUPPLY OF FUEL. Of the question of fuel for the future dwellers upon the face of Buffalo Land, Hayden, in his report, speaks as follows: "The question often arises in the minds of visitors to this region, how the law of compensation supplies the want of fuel in the absence of trees for that use. Many persons have taken the position that the Creator never made such a vast country, with a soil of such wonderful fertility, and rendered it so suitable for the abode of man, without storing in the earth beds of carbon for his needs. If this idea could be shown to be true in any case, we would ask why are the immense beds of coal stored away in the mountains of Pennsylvania and Virginia, while at the same time the surface is covered with dense forests of timber. We now know that this law does not apply to the natural world; and, if it did, this western country would be a remarkable exception. The State of Nebraska seems to be located on the western rim of the great coal basin of the West, and only thin seams of poor coal will probably ever be found; but in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains, in Wyoming, and Colorado, coal in immense quantities has been hidden away for ages, and the Union Pacific Railroad has now brought it near the door of every man's dwelling. "These Rocky Mountain coal-beds will one day supply an abundance of fuel for more than one hundred thousand square miles along the Missouri River of the most fertile agricultural land in the world."