After Nevada, these Territories offered the earliest promise of becoming States.

They were both parts of the old Louisiana purchase from France, and had in popular estimation and in the classification of the earlier geographers been included within the borders of the Great American Desert.

But settlers has swarmed upon the plains of Nebraska, and the waving fields of grain and the innumerable herds of cattle browsing on her rich pasture-land soon dispelled that misconception, and gave promise of the prosperous development which the State has since attained.

Earlier than the farmer or the grazier could reach its soil, Colorado was settled by an intelligent mining population, whose industry has extracted from her mountains more than two hundred millions of the precious metals, contributed in the last quarter of a century to the wealth of the world.

Encouraged by the policy of the Administration, and especially by the precedent of Nevada, both Territories sought an enabling Act from Congress in the winter of 1862-63.