Texas Almanac, 1939-1940 Page: 30

30 THE TEXAS ALMANAC-1939.

the west, the average is less than 10
inches. The full, slow-moving streams
of East Texas meander through forests
of oak, pine and cypress to the Gulf. On
the Diablo Plateau, the occasional show-
ers that are dashed to the ground to wa-
ter the scant grass and cactus never find
their way to the sea, but drain into shal-
low salt basins to be licked up again in
the dry atmosphere.
Texas Diversity.
Between these extremes of altitude,
temperature, rainfall and other physio-
graphic and climatic conditions are many
gradations, which give Texas its diver-
sity geographically, economically and so-
cially.
Not infrequently, someone compares
the area of Texas with that of Rhode
Island, Connecticut, Alabama, Missouri,
France or Europe or some other large or
small political division. Or again, one
hears such statements as "if Texas were
pivoted at Texarkana and swung around
m a circle, El Paso would pass north of
Chicago."
Such statements bring out the vastness
of the area of Texas. But presentation
of facts such as the following do more
to bring out the real resources of this
great area:
Texas has in its pine timber belt an
area as large as Indiana. Texas has an
area along the coast, lying less than 150
feet above sea level and having a sub-
tropical climate, equal to the area of
South Carolina. Texas has an area lying
in a middle temperature climate and
ranging from 3,000 to 4,000 feet above
sea level and being 75 per cent or more
cultivable as large as Pennsylvania. Tex-
as has a mountainous area west of the
Pecos as large as the state of West Vir-
ginia. Texas has a uniformly good farm-
ing country, well watered and ranging in
altitude from 200 to 2,500 feet above sea
level, situated in Central and Midwest
Texas, equal to the areas of Ohio and
Kentucky. Texas has an area on the
Edwards Plateau, admirably adapted to
cattle, sheep and goat raising and diversi-
fied crop production, as large as the state
of Tennessee.
Texas has the third longest coast line
among the states, and yet it is, from the
standpoint of actual distance of most of
its territory from the sea, and from
standpoint of transportation and trans-
portation problems, a great inland em-
pire. Briefly, Texas is large, and it is
enormously varied. It is the variety
rather than the size that is chiefly in-
teresting and that is latent with possi-
bility.
TEXAS' FOUR GREAT PHYSIOGRAPH-
IC AREAS.
In a preceding paragraph it was stated
that Texas is divided, physiographically,
into four great provinces (1) the Coast-

al Plain, (2) the North Central Region,
(3) the Great Plains, and (4) the Trans-
Pecos Mountain area. In the paragraphs
below are brief descriptions of each of
these provinces and their principal sub-
divisions with remarks on their resources
and commerce.
COASTAL PLAINS.
The Coastal Plains, representing the
lowest of the four great physiographic
regions of Texas, stretch inland from
tidewater to the line of the Balcones
Escarpment. This fault line, one of the
most distinct in Texas physiographically,
stretches from the Rio Grande near Del
Rio eastward to San Antonio and then
swings northeastward striking the Colo-
rado River just above Austin. Through-
out this distance of approximately 200
miles this subterranean fault line is
easily followed on the surface of the
earth by the abrupt escarpment consti-
tuting the hills at the break of the Ed-
wards Plateau. The word Balcones is
simply the Spanish for balconies, the
word applied by early cartographers to
the series of rounded hills that pass just
above San Antonio.
North of the Colorado River the Bal-
cones Escarpment continues north-north-
east to the Red River, but there is less
surface indication and likewise it disinte-
grates underneath the surface into a se-
ries of parallel minor faults. However,
from the Rio Grande to Red River it can
be designated as approximately the di-
viding line between coastal and upland
Texas.
The Coastal Plains are coextensive
with the four great geologic belts run-
ning parallel to the coast and including
(1) the Quaternary extending inland
from tidewater an average of about fifty
miles, (2) the Pliocene-Miocene belt,
paralleling the Quaternary an average of
about thirty miles in width, (3) the
Eocene, lying still higher than the Plio-
cene-Miocene, and (4) the Gulf Cre-
taceous.
Physiographically the Coastal Plains
may be divided into (1) the Rio Grande
Embayment, (2) Coastal Prairies, (3)
the Pine Woods area, (4) the Postoak
belt, and (5) the Blackland Prairies.
Rio Grande Embayment.
The Rio Grande Embayment is that
portion of the Coastal Plain lying be-
tween tidewater and the Balcones Escarp-
ment from southeast to northwest, and
between the San Antonio River and the
Rio Grande from northeast to southwest.
It traverses the lower ends of each of
the four geologic regions mentioned
above and must be classed as a physio-
graphic area of odds and ends rather
than one of consistent features. It is de-
voted primarily to livestock raising
though there are extensive areas of dry
farming in the north and northeast por-