The Portland daily press., 1893-02-03

OF the Great Rlatn9s ,
1t is easy enough to take an atlas and
figure out that the distance from Chica-.
60 or st. Louis to Pixies peak is greater
than the distance from New York to.
Chicago or st. Louis. 1t is not SO easy
actually to realize and understand the
tremendous nature of that fact.
We are all D customed to say with,
the glibness that comes from repeated
iteration, that this is great country,
but a man who sits still and reads about
its greatness even though his imagina-
ton may be unusually lively and fertile,
cannot obtain such realizing sense OF
the area and resources and boundless
possibilities of our national domain as
one who actually traverses it.
Another thing that everybody knows
in sort of way is that the great west is
the granary of the world, but you cannot
begin to understand what that means
until you have travelled whole day on
fast train through miles upon miles
of apparently lmitless cornfelds that
stretch west from Chicago to the Missis-
sippi-west 400 miles across the great
state of Iowa to the Missouri and 400
miles more through the equally great
states of Nebraska and Kansas.
After a whole day of corn6elds, d.
versifed every two or three hours with
well built, thoroughly equipped, hust-
ling western city, and knowing, too. that
this great grainfeld reaches north and
south 1000 miles, one begins to get an
idea of what it means to say that this is
the worlds granary.
Indiana and Illinois, especially the for
mer, are rather fiat, but Iowa has very
good sized hills throughout the state
from east to west; hills from 100 to 200
feet perhaps above the level of the sur
rounding plains and the valleys that di-
vide them. After you ascend the bluff
west of the Missouri river at Omaha
there begins the real prairie, which is
not fat country nor yet a billy, but
vast billowy expanse that looks more
like the ocean than any other land ever
saw.
ALI the way from Chicago to western
Nebraska and Kansas the surface soil
is black loan, which, when freshly
turned up by the plow conveys the al
most irresistible impression Of having
just been burned over, it is so black.
No wonder corn grows anywhere from
8 to 10 yards high in such soil! No
wonder that crop after crop can be raised
upon it without seeming to drain its
marvellous fertility!
The feeling that comes over one on the
prairies, out of sight of anything except
the vast expanse of cornnelds, is COM
parable with nothing else than the feel
ing one has who is at sea, out OF sight of
land. Yet it is different from that. Per-
haps it is not quite such q lonely feeling,
for the corn itself, and the barbed wire
fences, and the occasional little farm
house in the distance are a constant re-
hinder that one is still really surrounded
by evidences of civilization.
But the boundless vision, the absence
of any horizon-or what seems its alb
sence to one accustomed to having his
horizon bounded by hills or mountains
only a short distance away-bears in
upon the mind an impression of the i'm
mensity of space and the infnitesimal
smallness of man that if yielded to is at
first really appalling. After awhile one
gets used to it, and the feeling of oppres
sion wears off, and instead there comes
feeling Of freedom, of having plenty of
room, that is exhilarating, but at first
one feels entirely overcome.
We were fortunate enough to get our
first sight of Pixies peak at sunrise, and
a wonderful and never to be forgotten
sight it was. 1t was about half past 6
in the morning, and just at that point
we were running southwark. On the
left hand side Of the train the sky was
adame with vivid pink. On the right.
the full moon, still bright, was low down
near the horizon. On sudden some one
cried, ssOh, there it is!'' No need to ask
what. Every one knew what ''it' must
be.
Yes, there was snowclad mountain,
almost under the full moon, its ridges
rejecting back nascent pink from the
glow in the east, while still shining cold
and white in the food Of moonshine. 1t
did not seem far away-not any farther,
really, at first glance, than it seems
from here as I look up at it from my
west window. Yet it was So miles from
us.
We have all read Of the wonderfully
clear air of the Rocky mountain region
and the deceptiveness of distances here,
but even knowing that found it simply
impossible to reconcile the alleged dis
lance of the peak with what could see
with my own eyes. There positively
was not room for 10, not to say 80, miles
of ground, however fiat, to exist between
us and that mountain! Still we come
on and on, and the peak seemed not a
whit nearer, although it began to grow
higher. There seemed to be no perspec-
tive about it. 1t just kept climbing up
and up, but never approached us at all.
Now that we are here, only dozen
miles from the top of the peak, it still
looks, as it did an hours ride to the east,
about mile and a half away.-Colorado
Springs Cor. New York Mail and Ex-
raraGg