THE FUTUre of caliIFORNIA. 623 largest city on the Pacific coast and has an extensive commerce and a large amount of manufacturing. Sacramento, the capital of the State, had 16,283 inhabitants in 1870, and the census of 1880 gives it 21,420. Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco, had 34,556 in 1880; San Jose, 12,567; Los Angeles, 11,311; and Stockton in the San Joaquin valley 10,287 inhabitants; Marysville, Santa Cruz, San Diego, and Santa Barbara are the other towns of importance. California, as the gateway of the Pacific, holds a different position to "Our Western Empire" from any other State or Territory in it. With its fine climate, its vast extent of fertile soil, its rich and abundant pasturage, its 'great mineral wealth, its extensive commerce, and its growing manufactures, it has a career before it much like that of the State of New York on the Atlantic coast. If it shall shake off the death-grapple of the horde of political communists and demagogues, the miserable miscreants, who call themselves "workingmen," but most of whom never did an honest day's work in their lives, who are now trying to throttle it, it will have a great and glorious future as the leading State of this great Western Empire; but if not CHAPTER IV. COLORADO. SITUATION, BOUNDARIES, AREA-TOPOGRAPHY-MOUNTAINS, VALLEYS, PLAINS, PARKS, RIVERS, LAKES, CANONS-CLIMATE, SOIL, AND VEGETATION-GEOLOGY, MINERALOGY, ANIMALS-MINES AND MINING INDUSTRY-THE EXTRAORDINARY Development of Mining in the STATE SINCE 1875-MINING DISTRICTS FARMING STOCK-RAISING WOOL-GROWING - RAILROADS-COM MERCE - - POPULATION — INCREASE SINCE 1870-COUNTIES-EDUCATION— CHURCHES-THE FUTURE of Colorado. COLORADO, often called "the Centennial State," because it was admitted to the Union in 1876, the year of our Centennial celebration of our national existence, is situated very nearly in the centre of "Our Western Empire," the distance in a direct line being about the same to St. Louis and to San Franciscoto the frontier of British America and to that of Mexico. It lies between the thirty-seventh and the forty-first parallels of north latitude, and between the 102d and the 109th meridians of longitude west from Greenwich. Its width from north to south is about 280 miles, and its length from east to west about 370 miles. Its area is 104,500 square miles, or 66,880,000 acres. The great plains which stretch from the Missouri river to the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains, rising slowly but steadily with each mile of their advance westward, have attained, when they reach the mountains, an elevation of between 6,000 and 7,000 feet above the sea. Eastern Colorado, for about three-sevenths of its extent, from east to west, consists of the most elevated part of these plains, which reach as far as Denver. West of the 105th meridian come the Rocky Mountains, which here attain their greatest breadth. The mountains consist of several principal ranges (which, however, do not extend continuously from north to south, but are broken off and made irregular by the great parks which are a feature of the mountains in Colorado), and of numerous spurs or short ranges extending westward, southwestward and northwestward, and terminating usually in broad plateaux, which are suddenly broken off by the deep cañons of the Green, Grand, and other tributaries of the Colorado of the West. It is a feature of the Rocky Mountains, and perhaps of all mountain chains on this continent, that the eastern slope of each range is generally much more gradual than the western, and that the ascent, even of its highest summits, is less difficult on the eastern than the western face. The western slope of each range is generally precipitous and sometimes impracticable. The ranges in their order, beginning with the easternmost, are the Colorado Front Range, which, though adopting some local names in the southern part of its course, extends from the northern to the southern bounds of the State. It has several lofty peaks, among which are Mount Evans, Mount Rosalia, Pike's Peak, and Chief Mountain. The first three are over 14,000 feet in height. The next in order is the Northern Colorado or Main Range, which joins the Front Range at the northern face of the |