Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1889-10-02

| object lesson. Some parts of that territory
which were so barren that spear of grass
could not have been raised there in hun
dred years, are now rich as Lancaster coun-
ty farms, of Pennsylvania, or Westchester
farms of New York, or Somerset county
farms of New Jersey.
Experiments have proved that ten acres
OF ground irrigated from waters gathered in
great Psychological basins will produce as
much as fifty acres from the downpour of
rain as seen in our regions. We have our
freshets and our droughts, but in those
lands which are to be scientifically irrigated
there will be neither freshets nor droughts.
AS you take pitcher and get it full of
water and then set it on table and take
drink out of it when you are thirsty and
never think of drinking pitcherful all at
once, so Montana and Wyoming and Idaho
will catch the rains of their rainy season
and take up all the waters of their rivers in
great pitchers of reservoirs and drink out
of them whenever they will and refresh
their land whenever they will.
| The work has already been grandly be-
gan by the United States Government.
Over four hundred lakes have already been
officially taken possession of by the nation
for the great enterprise of irrigation. R,v-
ers that have been rolling idly through these
regions, doing nothing on their way to the
sea, will be lassoed and corralled and pen
ned up until such time as the farmers need
them. Under the same processes the Ohio,
the Mississippi and all the other rivers will
be taught to behave themselves better, and
great basins will be made to catch the sur.
plus of waters in times of freshets and keep
them for times of drought. The irrigating
process by which all the arid lands between
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are to be
| fertilized is no new experiment. 1t has been
going on successfully hundreds of years in
Spain, in China, in India, in Russia, in
Egypt.
About eight hundred million of people of
the earth today are kept alive by food
raised on irrigated land And here we have
allowed to lie waste, given up to rattle
snake and bat and prairie dog, lands enough
| to support whole nations of industrious
population. The work begun will be con-
sammated. Here and there exceptional
lands may be stubborn and refuse to yield
any wheat or corn from their hard fists, but
if The hoe fail to make an impression, the
miners pick.ax will discover the reason for
it, and bring up from beneath these unpro-
ductive surfaces coal and iron and lead and
copper and silver and gold. God speed the
geologsts and the surveyors, the engineers
capitalists and the new settlers and the
husbandmen who put their brain and hand
and heart to this TRANSPORTATION of the
American continent.
But while I speak of the immensity of
the continent, / must remark it is not an
| immensity of monotone or tamenesS. The
larger some countries are the worse for the
world This continent is not more remark
able for it's magnitude than for its wonders
of construction. What pity the United
States Government did not take possession
of Yosemite, California, as it has of yell
lowstone, Wyoming, and of Niagara Falls,
Now York. Yosemite and the adjoining
California regions! Who that has seen
them can think of them without having his
blood tinges Trees now standing there
that were old when Christ lived. These
monarchs of foliage reigned before Cesar
or Alexander, and the next thousand years
will not shatter their sceptre. They are the
masts of the continent, their canvas spread
on the winds while the old ship bears on it's
way through the ages. Their size, of which
travellers often speak, does not affect me
so much as their longe7 7ity. Though SO old
now, the branches of some of them will
crackle in the last confagration of the
planet.
That valley of the Yosemite is eight miles
long and a half mile wide and three thou
sand feet deep. 1t seems as if 1t had been
the meaning of Omnipotence to crowd into
as small place as possible some of the
most stupendous scenery of the world.
Some of the cliffs you do not stop to mea,
sure by feet, for they are literally a mile
high. Steep so that neither foot of man nor
beast ever scaled them, they stand in ever
lasting defiance. If Jehovah has throne
on earth these are it's white pillars. Stand
ing down in this great chasm of the valley
you look up and yonder is Cathedral Rock,
vast, gloomy minister built, for the silent
worship of the mountains. Yonder is SEN
tinel Rock, 2,270 feet high, bold, solitary,
standing guard among the ages, in top sci
dom touched until bride one Fourth of
July, mounted it and planted the national
standards, and the people down its the val
Icy looked up and saw the head of the
mountain turbaned with stars and stripes.
Yonder are the ''Three Brothers." four
thousand feet high; "Cloud's Rest,'' North
and South Dome and heights never captur-
ed save by the fiery bayonets of the thun-
der storm.
No pause for the eye, no stopping place
for the mind. Mountains hurled on noun.
tains. Mountains in the wake of noun.
tairs. Mountains fanked by mountains
Mountains split. Mountains ground. Noun
tains fallen Mountains triumphant. AS
: though Mont Blanc and the Adirondacks
and Mount Washington were here utteriug
themselves in one magnificent chorus OF
rock and precipice and waterfall. Sitting
and dashing through the rocks, the water
comes down. The Bridal Veil Falls, SC
thin you can see the face of the mountain
behind it. Yonder is Yosemite Falls, drop
ping 1854 feet, sixteen times greater than
that of Niagara. These waters dashed to
d 'ath on the rocks, so that the white spirit
of the slain waters ascending in a robe OF
mist seeks the heaven. Yonder is Nevada
Falls, plunglng seven hundred feet, the
water 10 arrows, the water in rockets, the
water in pearls, the water in amethysts, the
water Is diamonds. That cascade filings
down the rocks enough jewels to array all
the earth is beauty, and rushes on until it
drops into very hell of waters, the smoke
of their torment ascending forever and
ever.
But the most wonderful part of this
American continent is the Yellowstone
park. My visit there last month made up
on me an impression that will last forever.
After all poetry has exhausted itself and all
the Morans and Bierstadts and the other On
chanting artists have completed their can
vas, there will be other revelations to make
and other stories of its beauty and wrath,
splendor and agony, to be recited. The
Yellowstone park is the geologist's para
disc. By cheapening of travel may it be-
come the nations playground! In some
portions of it there seems to be the anarchy
of the elements. Fire and water, and the
vapor born of that marriage, terrific. Gey-
ser cones or hills of crystal that have been
over five thousand years growing. In places
the earth, throbbing, sobbing, groaning,
quaking with aqueous paroxysm.
At the expiration of every sixty-fve min
utes one of the geysers tossing its boiling
water 1876 feet in the air and then descend
ing into swinging rainbows. Caverns of
pictured walls large enough for the sepul-
chre of the human race. formations OF
stone in shape and color of Gala lily, of