The enduring monuments that form the Wildcat range were then laid down. At Chimney Rock it was 140 feet deep as shown by the depositions in the spire. But much of the rich soil of Scotts Bluff county was laid in the bottom cf possibly one hundred fathoms of water before that river was in existence. Sheep -Mountain, Castle Rock, and Scotts Bluff are distinctive monuments of the ancient river and in part the valley lying alongside received its alluvial substances from wash from these hills.

The oxidization of the rocks that ages ago were strewn upon the turbulent main is one of the sources of wonderful fertility. Oxigen and hydrogen, the wonderful invisible elements of Infinite, have been at work for a million years -- incessantly penetrating the flinty substances of the younger world. And while the waters covered our country minute marine life put into the sedimentation the elements that make it now rich in potash, lime, and all the qualities required for crop raising, and all the especially desirable crops for the human race.

The big farms of the valley have been gradually cut into smaller acreage for it is found that one does not need a large acreage. As Arnold Martin said : "Twenty acres is enough for any man, forty acres is a calamity and eighty acres a catastrophe." The brain has the better chance to expand on a smaller acreage according to intensive farming methods.

The work of enriching the irrigated lands goes on with the years. Baron Munchausen