of a certain Western railroad: "They comprise a section of country
whose possibilities are simply _infinitesimal_, and whose developments
will be revealed in glorious realization through the horoscope of the
near future." This verbal architect builded wiser than he knew, for what
more fitting word could the imagination suggest wherewith to crown the
possibilities of alkali wastes and barren, sun-scorched plains?

A considerable part of the New West of to-day was explored by the
Spaniards more than three centuries ago. Before the English had landed
at Plymouth Rock or made a settlement at Jamestown they had penetrated
to the Rocky Mountains and given to peak and river their characteristic
names. Southern Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona have been the theatres
wherein were enacted deeds of daring and bravery perhaps unsurpassed by
any people and any age; and that, too, centuries before they became a
part of our American Union. The whole country is strewn over with the
ruins of a civilization in comparison with which our own of to-day seems
feeble. And he who journeys across the Plains till he reaches the Sangre
del Cristo Mountains or the blue Sierra Mojadas enters a land made
famous by the exploits of Coronado, De Vaca and perhaps of the great
Montezuma himself.

In the year 1540, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was sent by the Spanish
viceroy of Mexico to explore the regions to the north. Those
mountain-peaks, dim and shadowy in the distance and seeming to recede as
they were approached, had ever been an alluring sight to the
gold-seeking Spaniards. But the coveted treasure did not reveal itself
to their cursory search; and though they doubtless pushed as far north
as the Arkansas River, they returned to the capital from what they
considered an unsuccessful expedition. The way was opened, however, and
in 1595 the Spaniards came to what is now the Territory of New Mexico
and founded the city of Santa Fe. They had found, for the most part, a
settled country, the inhabitants living in densely-populated villages,
or _pueblos_, and evincing a rather high degree of civilization. Their
dwellings of mud bricks, or _adobes_, were all built upon a single plan,
and consisted of a square or rectangular fort-like structure enclosing
an open space. Herds of sheep and goats grazed upon the hillsides, while
the bottom-lands were planted with corn and barley. Thus lived and
flourished the Pueblo Indians, a race the origin of which lies i