ern, the Northern Pacific, the Oregon Short Line and the Oregon, Railroad and Navigation Company. The Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul will also soon traverse Idaho.
Resources and Industries. Idaho's great resources are its soil, minerals, timber and water-supply. The soil is very productive. The available water-supply, which, by the law of the state must be for public use, is practically unlimited. The Snake River is harnessed at American Falls. The government reclamation service and private individuals are reclaiming vast tracts of arid land in the south of the state by means of irrigation. A dam was erected at Minidoka in 1912 and electrical machinery installed to develop 30,000 horse power. A fine power-plant was erected at Shoshone Falls in 1906. Other plants for lighting cities and for operating street-railways are at Salmon Falls, Horse Shoe Bend on Payette River, Twin Falls and Alberta. Electric rural roads are being constructed throughout the state.
The chief industries are lumbering, mining, stockraising and farming. Its timber is chiefly red fir, white and yellow pine, tamarack and cedar. The Potlatch Lumber Company's mill at Potlatch is second in size to only one other mill in the world and is the largest one in the United States.
The chief minerals are gold, silver, lead, copper, coal, cobalt and building-stone. Idaho has already mined over $300,000,000 in gold alone. The total value of the output in all minerals for 1910 was $15,437,403. The chief crops are cereals, potatoes, prunes, apples, apricots, pears, peaches, timothy and alfalfa. Wheat raised in 1910 was over 12,000,000 bushels. The value of the fruit crop in that year was $2,992,701. Live stock in 1910 was distributed as follows: cattle, 453,000; horses, 197,000; sheep, 3,010,000; hogs, 178,000; pounds of wool sold out of the state, 19,000,000. The new industries, creameries and dairies and the making of sugar from sugar beets, are becoming almost as profitable as sheepraising and orchardgrowing.
Education. Idaho from the start looked after its educational interests with great foresight and generosity. Its public school system is under the direction of a state board of education and a superintendent of public instruction. The state maintains an academy at Pocatello, Bannock County; the State Normal School at Albion; the Normal School at Lewiston; the Industrial Training School at St. Anthony; the School for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind at Boise; and the State University at Moscow.
The university includes the college of agriculture, the school of arts and sciences, the colleges of civil, electrical and mining engineering and the government experiment station. Excellent administration and magnificent land grants have already placed the university among the leading educational institutions for higher learning in the entire west. The state also maintains the free traveling library system, and has about 110 newspapers and four magazines.
History. Idaho was used only as an emigrant trail to reach the coast until the discovery of gold in the north drew great numbers to Lewiston in 1860. In 1870 Idaho was created a territory. In 1890 it became a state. It is just entering upon a great development. Immigration is largely stimulated by the irrigation projects.
I′dol, an image made to represent a divine being and be adored as such. Worshiping such an object as a god is idolatry. To these images and the objects of nature, as the sun, the moon, the stars, air, water, fire and other elements, divine honors were given by the most ancient nations. Nature-worship or the worship of the various objects in the world around us may be traced to the Phœnicians, who made gods of the sun, moon and stars. The origin of animal worship can be traced to the Egyptians, who made gods of oxen, birds, crocodiles, serpents and still lower forms of animal life. Man-worship had its origin in Greece and Rome, and is familiar to us through their mythology. Among the chief gods of Greece were Zeus (Jove or Jupiter), the god of the sky; Neptune, the ruler of the sea; Apollo, the god of light; Mars, god of war. Idols most often are imitations of the human form in wood or stone, made colossal or monstrous to give added dignity or power. To savage minds the animal is the equal of man; so we sometimes find that their idols were grotesque figures, half-human and half-animal. See Early History of Mankind and Primitive Culture by E. B. Tylor.
I′dyls of the King. This is the name given by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to 12 poems published between 1859 and 1872, which tell of King Arthur and his knights. The real Arthur seems to have been a leader of the ancient Britons after the Romans had abandoned the island. It is not certain whether he led them against the heathen Scots or against the heathen Saxon invaders. In any case he was finally defeated. The conquered Britons, who fled to the mountains of Wales and to Brittany in France, began to tell wonderful stories of his valor and goodness, and even fancied that he had not really died but would one day come again to give them victory. Later, the knights of chivalry, because Arthur had been a Christian fighting against heathens, adopted him as one of their heroes and told stories even more wonderful about him; they fancied him a knight like themselves; and around his name there began to center a circle of stories in which many other knights appeared. These were then said to be King
