Clearfield Republican. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1851-1937, 1872-07-03
THE sPLENDOR OF THE WEST
Switzerland and italy within Our Own Borders--Ths
Glores OF the Yellowstone.

[From the New York lIerald,l
As the mon Of enterprise and science
advance into the unexplored recesses
of our republic-pioneers, road build
crs, gold searchers-every step brings
new revelation of this republics
wealth and beauty. We, as n people,
are regarded by the critics of the
mossy, overgrown and cabined nations
of Continental Europe as given to ex-
aggeration. "The special intellectual
foiblc OF the Americans" says the
London Spectator, sis their admiration
for the grandiose" Yet we cannot
write the plain discoveries recorded in
the Herald without seeming to the
foreign mind TO indulge in grandiose
rhetoric. Every day seems to bring
forth a new wonder, and the time is
coming quickly when the tides OF
health.desiring and wonder. seeking
travel will be from Europe to America.
Why, for intsance, should we go to
Switzerland to sec the mountains, or
to Iceland for geysers? Thirty years
ago the attraction of America to the
foreign mind was Niagara Falls. Now
we have attractions which diminish
Niagara into an ordinary exhibition
The Yo Semitic, which the nation has
made a park, the Rocky Mountains
and their singular parks, the canyons
of the Colorado, the Dallcs of the
Columbia, the giant trees, the lake
country OF Upper Minnesota, the
country Of the Yellowstone, with their
beauty, their splendor, their extraor-
dinary and sometimes terrible mani.
festations of nature, form series OF
attractions possessed by no other ma.
ton in the world, When that famous
city.itom reporter, Charles Dickens,
came here over thirty years ago, he
was taken in state TO see a Missouri
prairie. He made an elaborate record
of the disappointment it caused him
and his failure to see anything to
compare with the glen of Glencoe, in
Scotland. The thought that our faith
ers were so ignorant OF their own
country as to regard a prairie its
rarest attraction is not without humor
and we can well pardon the absence
of any enthusiasm on the occasion o.
the stately visit, and the desire of Mr.
Dickens to kill the tedousness of th,
journey by champagne and comic
songs. But we really had little NOR,
than prairie and some long, narrow
muddy. uninterestinp rivers TO show
to the foreigner thirty years ago. TIL,
West was an unknown land to us
There was nothing but "desolation'
beyond the Mississippi; and as TO th,
Pacific, the Mexicans and Spaniard
we're in possession, and VIC had no
fought our war for Texas and Califor
mia. As we have said, why 90 /,
Switzerland to SEQ tho AlpsY Ther,
is no exhiaration of air or beauty O
scenery in the Alpine regions that W,
have not in Colorado. Within thre,
or, by easy stages, four days from
New York, the traveller finds bimsel
stepping from luxurious palace ca
into Denver. and from Denver swcep
view that has no parallel in ia,
world Mountains and peaks, will
every conceivable variety of color ant
beauty, stretching for hundre,
miles north and south, their tops GOV
cred with perpetual snow. Th,
mountain parks invite him for sum
mer's holiday. If he would fish, ther
are trout in tho streams. II he woul,
hunt, there are deer on the mountair
and buflaloes on the plains, and n
angry Bcrgh to molcst or make afraid
lfhe has scieniific.tastes, therocks wi
tell him q geological story the quart
formations will speak Of the hidde
riches Of the earth the fora will b
full OF profit and instruction. Th
air Ia nnrc and liio. oivino md o,,