Steep Trails - California - Utah - Nevada - Washington - Oregon - The Grand Canyon By John Muir












































































































































 -   I therefore lay
between two fires, built to fence out snakes and wolves.

From the summit of the eastern rim - Page 124
Steep Trails - California - Utah - Nevada - Washington - Oregon - The Grand Canyon By John Muir - Page 124 of 304 - First - Home

Enter page number    Previous Next

Number of Words to Display Per Page: 250 500 1000

I Therefore Lay Between Two Fires, Built To Fence Out Snakes And Wolves.

From the summit of the eastern rim I had a glorious view of the valley out to the ocean, which would require a whole book for its description.

My bread gave out a day before reaching the settlements, but I felt all the fresher and clearer for the fast.

XII

Nevada Farms[15]

To the farmer who comes to this thirsty land from beneath rainy skies, Nevada seems one vast desert, all sage and sand, hopelessly irredeemable now and forever. And this, under present conditions, is severely true. For notwithstanding it has gardens, grainfields, and hayfields generously productive, these compared with the arid stretches of valley and plain, as beheld in general views from the mountain tops, are mere specks lying inconspicuously here and there, in out-of-the-way places, often thirty or forty miles apart.

In leafy regions, blessed with copious rains, we learn to measure the productive capacity of the soil by its natural vegetation. But this rule is almost wholly inapplicable here, for, notwithstanding its savage nakedness, scarce at all veiled by a sparse growth of sage and linosyris[16], the desert soil of the Great Basin is as rich in the elements that in rainy regions rise and ripen into food as that of any other State in the Union. The rocks of its numerous mountain ranges have been thoroughly crushed and ground by glaciers, thrashed and vitalized by the sun, and sifted and outspread in lake basins by powerful torrents that attended the breaking-up of the glacial period, as if in every way Nature had been making haste to prepare the land for the husbandman.

Enter page number   Previous Next
Page 124 of 304
Words from 33174 to 33458 of 82482


Previous 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 Next

More links: First 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200
 210 220 230 240 250 260 270 280 290 300
 Last

Display Words Per Page: 250 500 1000

 
Africa (29)
Asia (27)
Europe (59)
North America (58)
Oceania (24)
South America (8)
 

List of Travel Books RSS Feeds

Africa Travel Books RSS Feed

Asia Travel Books RSS Feed

Europe Travel Books RSS Feed

North America Travel Books RSS Feed

Oceania Travel Books RSS Feed

South America Travel Books RSS Feed

Copyright © 2005 - 2022 Travel Books Online