TOPOGRAPHY. In general the land rises gradu ally toward the western boundary by a succession of broad and more or less terraced slopes running parallel with the Gulf coast. Five or six well marked topographical regions may be distin guished. The first is the coastal plain, a con tinuation of the same formation in the other Gulf States. It rises gradually from sea level to an altitude of 500 feet about 150 miles inland, and is very level in its lower portion, becoming some what hilly near its inner bo•der. The coast itself is lined almost throughout its length of 375 miles by lagoons cut off from the sea by long, narrow sand islands. The largest and southernmost of these lagoons is the Laguna Madre, whose water is almost stagnant and very salt. The northern lagoons generally extend some distance inland in large, irregular bays and estuaries, lined partly by low marshy shores, partly by high bluffs. The principal bays are those of Galveston, Mata gorda, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi. West of the coastal plain extends a belt of rolling coun try known as the Black Prairie, about 100 miles wide in the north and south, but very narrow in its middle portion. It is succeeded on the north west by a very broad belt of country called by geologists the Central Denuded Region. This rises from a height of 600 feet in the east to over 2000 feet in the west, being hounded by the es carpment of the Llano Estacado, and is a rugged and much eroded, though not mountainous, re gion, with ridges, prairie valleys, isolated table lands, and irregular depressions. It is bounded
on the west and southwest by the Plateau Re gion, a southern continuation of the Great Plains. South of the 'Panhandle' this forms a large, flat topped table-land, the Llano Estacado, which from an altitude of 4000 feet falls on the east into the Denuded Region in a high, steep, and ragged es carpment cut back by several large river valleys. On the southeast it runs out into a lower plateau of different formations known as the Grand Prairie. This sweeps around the southern end of the Denuded Region, and geologically, and ac cording to some also topographically, it runs northward between the latter and the Black Prairie, though it is here much lower than in the south. It extends southward to the Rio Grande Valley. and is bounded on the southeast by an escarpment. The last topographical region is the portion of the State lying beyond the Pecos River in the southwest. This is a rugged mountainous country with a number of high isolated and bar ren ridges inclosing broad and arid valleys. The highest point is Baldy Peak, with an altitude of 8382 feet.