Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1904-08-12
new MEXICO, THE
LAND OF SUNSHINE
A Neat and Well Written Pamphlet
Issued by the Passenger Depart
nent of the Rock Island
System.

The passenger department of the
Rock Island System, of which John Sc
bastian is the well-known and efficient
manager has issued a striking sixty
page pamphlet entitled New Mexico,
the Land of Sunshine" which must be
delight to every lover of New Mex
leo. 1t is one of the best written and
most cleverly compiled of the many
railroad advertising pamphlets which
are being circulated today to attract
settlers or tourist traffic, and that it
will fulfill this aim to profitable ex-
| tent is certain. The brochure is nice
| ly illustrated with half-tone cuts and
railroad map of eastern New Mexico,
which lacks but one point of being
complete, and that is that the Santa
Fe Central Railway is given no place
on it, and therefore it does not show
the direct connection that Santa Fe
possesses with the Rock Island, very
material error for the pamphlet de-
votes some space to the attractions OF
the Capital City. Although issued spe-
cifically to advertise eastern New Mex
leo, it is descriptive of the entire ter
ritory, much of the information being
derived from publications of the Bu-
reau of immigration. The pamphlet
has an artistic cover and can be Sc
cured by application to the passenger
department of the Rock Island.
What can be more delicious and in
viting to perusal of the pamphlet
than this introduction to the first
chapter entitled "a Bit of History?"
"To begin at the beginning of all
history would be to go back to that
misty time when the world was new
and the rocks were wet for does not
the birth-record which great nature
keeps show New Mexico to be one of
the oldest of Earth Children? Did not
her mountain peaks, reared amid the
travail of forming continent, send
greeting to their sisters as they rose
above. the waters of the hoarse Silu-
rian sea? Is it not true, too, that the
Southwest of which New Mexico is the
center was the cradle of the race?
lis it not true that evidence is accu-
mulating to show that here in this sun
ny land, man lived and wrought, titled
the soil, tended f1ocks, and built cities
long before Noah set sail in his rud-
derless boat, or Adam opened his hor-
. )ticultural experiment station in the val
ley of the Euphrates? Let those who
Ideem America without past and think
J antiquity synonymous with the East,
go to New Mexico and stand amid the
ruins of the Seven Cities of Cibola.
There in that land of mystery slumber
the 'sheeted dead of a thousand gen.
erations; there among the crumbling
, walls still stands the ghostly past
awaiting a newer day and a completer
civilization.
> "All this is interesting, but tradition
+ and fancy and even history are value
less except as they serve to illuminate
!. the hard facts of the present. 1t is
! worth knowing, however that New
/ Mexico, the last of our vast territorial
q limits to be exploited and subdued,
J. was the first to be occupied by the
]. forces of modern civilization, and fur
y thermore, that it was the chosen home
of primal race. The natural conclu-
:. sion from such facts is that country
r which possesses the crude elements
=. necessary to evolve "a civilization such
O as the Spanish invaders found and de-
l. lstroyed, must and will pay large div
" lidends upon modern enterprise"
= The volume is "a little. classic and
> can well serve as model to publica-
tions of similar purport and scope.