y that the north
central portion of the United States is more fortunate than any other
part of the earth. Nowhere else, unless in western Europe, is there such
a combination of fertile soil, fine climate, easy communication, and
possibilities for manufacturing and commerce. Iron from that outlier of
the Laurentian highland which forms the peninsula of northern Michigan
can easily be brought by water almost to the center of the prairie
region. Coal in vast quantities lies directly under the surface of this
region, for the rock of the ancient coastal plain belongs to the same
Pennsylvanian series which yields most of the world's coal. Here man is,
indeed, blessed with resources and opportunities scarcely equaled in any
other part of the world, and finds the only drawbacks to be the extremes
of temperature in both winter and summer and the remoteness of the
region from the sea. Because of the richness of their heritage and
because they live safely protected from threats of foreign aggression,
the people who live in this part of the world are in danger of being
slow to feel the currents of great world movements.

The western half of the plains of North America consists of two parts
unlike either the Atlantic coastal plain or the prairies. From South
Dakota and Nebraska northward far into Canada and westward to the Rocky
Mountains there extends an ancient peneplain worn down to gentle relief
by the erosion of millions of years. It is not so level as the plains
farther east nor so low. Its western margin reaches heights of four or
five thousand feet. Here and there, especially on the western side, it
rises to the crest of a rugged escarpment where some resistant layer of
rocks still holds itself up against the forces of erosion. Elsewhere its
smooth surfaces are broken by lava-capped mesas or by ridges where some
ancient volcanic dike is so hard that it has not yet been worn away.
The soil, though excellent, is thinner and less fertile than in the
prairies. Nevertheless the population might in time become as dense and
prosperous as almost any in the world if only the rainfall were more
abundant and good supplies of coal were not quite so far away. Yet in
spite of these handicaps the northwestern peneplain with its vast
open stretches, its cattle, its wheat, and its opportunities is a most
attractive land.

South of Nebraska and Wyoming the "high plains," the last of the four
great divisions of the plains, extend as far as we