Texas

TEXAS, popularly known as the "Lone Star State," is a south central State of the United States of America. It extends from 93° 31' to io6° 38' W. long. and from 25° 51' to 36° 3o' N. lati tude. A western projection is bounded north by New Mexico, but the main portion is bounded north by Oklahoma, from which it is separated in part by the Red river. On the east the northern projection is bounded by Oklahoma, but the main portion is bounded by Arkansas and Louisiana, the Sabine river separating it in part from Louisiana. On the south-east the State is bounded by the Gulf of Mexico, the coast line being about 400 m., or, counting all irregularities and inlets, 973 m. long. On the south-west Texas is bordered by Mexico from which it is separated by the Rio Grande river. On the west, by New Mexico.

Physical Features.

Physiographically, there are four pro vinces. In the south-east are the West Gulf plains, a part of the Coastal plain province of the United States. Thence westward to the moth meridian are the prairies, the south-westward extension of the Prairie plain province of the United States. The Great Plains (really a plateau) comprise the western half of the State, except a mountainous area in the west which belongs to the Basin Range province. The mountains of the Basin Range region, known in Texas as the Trans-Pecos province, rise in El Capitan, a peak of the Guadalupe mountains in Culberson county, to 9,020 ft., (the greatest elevation in the State), and the Great Plains have a maximum elevation in northern Texas exceeding 4;000 ft., but from these heights the surface descends to sea-level and the mean elevation of the State is about 1,700 feet. The Gulf plains are bordered along the Gulf of Mexico by a series of long narrow islands and peninsulas, or sand-bars. Padre, the longest of these islands, extends northward from the mouth of the Rio Grande more than loo miles. Back of the island sand-bars are the quiet waters of lagoons, and at the mouths of rivers are sev eral bays indenting the mainland ; these bays were formed by only a slight subsidence of the land and the rivers are fast filling them with deposits of silt. For zo m. or more inland in the north and for 5o m. inland in the south the Gulf plains are low and flat, seldom rising as much as i oo f t. above the sea, but farther west the surface is more broken and rises to a maximum of 700 feet.

Along a line drawn approximately south-south-west from the south-east corner of Oklahoma, the north-west part of the Gulf plains merges with the Prairie plains. The north-east portion of

the Texas Prairie plains is only gently rolling, but the south por tion is quite rugged, and the west half rises in a succession of scarps or steps to an elevation of 2,500 ft. at the beginning of the Great Plains province of the State. South of the parallel of the southern boundary of New Mexico the Great Plains province is known as the Edwards plateau ; between the Edwards plateau and the valley of the Canadian river, as the Llano Estacado, or Staked plains; and north of the Canadian valley as the North plains. The eastern and southern parts of the Edwards plateau and the eastern margin of the Llano Estacado have been made by headward erosion of streams, but the central portion of the Edwards plateau and nearly all the Llano Estacado have a notably even surface rising slowly to the north-west. In the south-eastern corner of the Trans-Pecos province is a smaller plain known as the Stockton plateau, but the remaining portion of this province is traversed from north-west to south-east by isolated mountains of the Basin Range or block mountain type.

The northern portion of the Panhandle is drained by the Cana dian river eastward into Arkansas and thence to the Mississippi. The south portion of the northern Panhandle and a strip along the north border of the State, east of the Panhandle, is drained by the Red river south-eastward into the Mississippi. The rest of the State is drained south-east directly into the Gulf of Mex ico. The Rio Grande and its principal tributary, the Pecos, drain narrow basins in the south-west ; these two rivers and the Cana dian river rise in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and New Mexico, but all the other rivers by which the State is drained rise within its borders. The Red, Brazos, Colorado, Guadalupe and the Nueces rise on the east or south-east border of the Great Plains; the Sabine and the Trinity on the Prairie plains; and numerous small streams on the Coastal plain. In the Great Plains region and in the Trans-Pecos province the rivers have cut deep canyons, and the character of the longer rivers in their upper courses varies from mere rivulets late in summer to swift and powerful streams during spring freshets. Most of the large Texas rivers have deposited great quantities of silt along their lower courses on the Coastal plain, where the current is often sluggish and the banks are periodically overflowed.