The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1886-01-21

The wonders a the Ola World and tho

thing OF association. We have read of
it, the scenes of the romances we have
fingered over are laid in the Old World.
Scotland is covered with the glamour of
the genius of Scott and Burns; En-
glands fields and hedges have royal
places In the imagination because of
the poetry and the stories we have read,
while the mystery of the sea, the asso-
Citations of an historic past, have given
to the Old World fact ground that
affords royal settings TO these older ma.
tions.
ders Of our own land. 1t has no per-
spective, il lacks historic settings, it's
scenes have not been woven into the
stores over which youths imagination
has dreamed, and it is true that while
the Matterhorn and Jung Frau are
familiar to MS, Washburn and Tacoma
are unknown. The lakes of England
are catalogued in the biographies of
every school boy; the New England
ponds, which are larger and faiser, the
Croton chain which has finer settings,
are unvisited, unknown, unhsard Of.
Distance charms, the near is, unre
garded.
The American can find within easy
distance of his own home larger WON
ders than he can find across the sea.
The writer went one day across Geneva
Lake-by cars no little distanee-to
stand within the shadows of the Gorge
du TRENT, never dreaming until In after
years he stood in Watkins Glen, that
within half q days ride OF his own home
there was larger wonder. Set side by
side the scenery of Europe and Amer
lea! The pointed SUBMITS of the Alps
are more picturesque than any Of our
mountains, but in grandeur of bulk
and majesty of outline the Rockies far
excel.
The water indeed comes down at
Lodore with pleasant jets and sprays,
Giesback, with its transforming lights.
is wonderful, but hidden in New En-
gland woods, unknown, unhonored, and
unsung, are cascades that excel them
both, while Niagara puts to shame the
waterfalls of the world, and the Bird j
Wells of Yosemite laugh at the pettiness
of the show cataracts of Europe.
The Vale of Lauderbrunnen is one
of the fairest places in the heart OF
Europe. 1t is ideal in loneliness, with
frowning cliffs, with the wreath of mist
eight hundred feet in length, trailing
its fieecy gossamers downward from the
sky on the black surface of the mighty
wall of stone. But what is the Lauder
brunnen beside the Yosemite? Put one
thousand lakes like this III one, stretch
up the cliff two thousand feet and
double the long spray of silvery mist,
make the tiny stream into the broad
MERGED River flowing through Emerald
Vale, kiss ng the feet of Ell Captain,
and even then Lauderbrunnen has not
been magnified into the fair Yosemite,
with its mirror lakes, its placid river,
sentineled by the eternal cliffs.
The cedars of Lebanon are pigmies
beside tho Mariposa pines; the relics
of the lake cities of Switzerland are
modern compared with the old tene.
ments of the mound-builders; and Eu.
rope has no antiquity of persisted races
so antique and wonderful as the cid
cities of Arizona and New Mexico. The
groves of Sorrento find peer in the
orange gardens In the suburbs of Los
Angeles. There may be on the Hima-
layan slopes fairer pastures than thosI
on the New England hills. The Vale
of Cashmere, in India, may rival the
beauties of the Garden of the Gods,
and pleasant Manitou, in Colorado, but
one must seek far and long in the old
world to find fairer scenes than are
within easy distance of our own homes.
Unless the writer's eyes. in seeing
and reading of the marvels of the
world, have played him false. there is
nothing on the globe to equal the mar.
wells of the great national Yellowstone
Park. The territory between its won.
ders is a park excelling the game pre-
serves of England, with a grass as
green as that of the old ancestral lawns
trimmed round with mountains, with
forests dark and dense, with turbulent
rivers breaking into cataracts and rap
ids. The Icelandic geysers are but
TOYS beside these monsters, whose flow
makes the source of rivers; there are
nowhere else such marvels of crystal
architecture as are made here at the
mammoth springs; the mud pots" OF
Norris Basin are worthy of the imagin.
alton of Dante, while the prismatii
pool Of "Hell's Half Acre" will find nt
rival until. by an alchemy yet to be
discovered, the rainbow can be caught
and held in solution in some pool OF
lake. The Yellowstone Lake rivals
Constance, excels Leman, and puts to
shame Loeb Lomond, while the great
Falls of the Yellowstone, and the mar
velous gorge, with its 1000 feet of al
titude and eight miles of length, with
colors before which the sunset tints OF
the Lybian Desert are pale and lifeless,
is peerless among the wonders of the
globe.
The steppes of Tartary are not SO
litless az the prairie stretches of the
West, the rivers of Europe could be
tnrled into the beds of the st. Law
renee and Mississippi, and navigation
would cease because of the lowness OF
the waters; the everglades of Florida
match the lagoons of Holland, while
the gray MOSES of Savannah show a
grizzly age that the oldest Old World
cities do not show. There is, too, the
element of as great associations in tho
New as in the Old World. The dynas
ties of the red man are at least as rich
in historic color as those of the Picts
and Scots, while the conquest of the
Pilgrims, had they but fit historian, is
as rich i'm heroism as the invasion of the