Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1893-04-19
ACROSS THE PLAINS.
RIDING THROUGH THE GREAT GRAM
AIRY OF THE WORLD.

Pixies Peak ut Sunrise and = FUN Moon.
How and When and where One Begins
to Get Realizing Sense Of the vastness
OF the Great riAins.
Ii is easy enough to take an atlas and
squire out that the distance from Chica-
10 or ST. Louis TO Pixies peak is greater
han the distance from New York to
Chicago or St. Louis. 1t is not SO easy
actually to realize and unde1tand the
tremendous nature of that facs
We are all accustomed TO say with,
he ylibness that comes from repeated
iteration, that this is great country,
but a man who sits still and reads about
Is greatness. even though his imagina-
ion may be unusually lively and fertile,
cannot obtsin such a realizing sense or
he area and resources and boandless
possibilities Of our national domain as
me who actually traverses it.
Another thing that everybody knows
II sort Of way is that the great west Is
he granary of the world, hut you cannot
5egin to understand what that means
autil YOU have travelled whole day on
fast train through miles upon miles
IF apparently limigless corntields that
tretch west from Chicago To the Missis-
,ippi-west 200 miles across the great
state of low. TO the Missouri and 400
niles more through the equally great
states of Nebraska and Kansas.
After whole day of cornhelds, di-
sersified every two or three hours with
A well built, thoroughly equipped, hust-
ing western city, and knowing. too. that
his great graiaiield reaches north and
south 900 miles, one hegius TO get an
dea of what il means TO say that tins Is
ne worlds gr,nary.
Indiana and Illinois, especially the for
mer. are rather fiat. hut Iowa has very
good sized hills throughout the state
| from east 10 west; hills from 100 to sN
feet perhaps above the level of the sur
-ounding plains and the valleys that d.
vide them. After You ascend the bluh
west of the Missouri river ut Omaha
| there begins the real prairie, which Is
not II flat country nor yet hilly, but II
vast billowy expanse that looks more
| ike the ocean than any other land l ever
saw.
| Al the way from Chicago to western
Nebraska and Kansas the surface soil
| is black loan. which, when freshly
turned up by the pillow conveys the al
most irresistible impression Of having
lust been burned over it is so black.
No wonder corn grows anywhere from
| ! to 10 wards high in such soil! No
wonder that crop after cropcan be raised
upon it without seeming to drain its
marvellous fertility.
| The feeling that comes over one ON e..
prairies. out of sight of anything except
Che vast cypanse of corl4elds, Is com
parable with nothing else than the feel
| in2 one has who is ut sea, out of sight of
| land. Yet il is different from that. Per
haps it is not quite such lonely feeling.
for the corn itself. and the barbed wire
fences and the occasional little farm
house in the distance are constant re-
minder that one is still really surrounded
| by evidences of civilization.
| But the houndless 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 short distance away-bears in
upon the mind an impression of the inn
mcnsity of space and the inhnitesimal
smallness Of man that if Welded TO is at
first really appalling After awhile one
gets used to it. and the feeling of oppres-
,ion wears off, and instead there comes
feeling of freedom, of having plenty of
room, that is celebrating, but at first
unc feels entirely overcome.
We were fortunate enough to get our
first sieeht of Fixes peak at sunrise, and
u wonderful and never to be forgotten
ei"ht it was. 1t was about half past 6
i'll he morning, and just at that point
we We're running southwark On the
lett hand side Of the tram the sky was
ai!ame with vivid pink, On the right,
Tho full moon, still bright, was low down
II, I the horizon. On a sudden some one
cried, "Oh. there it isl No need to ask
what. Every one knew what it must
be-.
Yes, there WAS Il snowclad mountain,
al;rost under the full moon, its ridges
rejecting back Il nascent pink from the
glow in the EAST. while still shining cold
and white IN the flood of moonshine. 1t
did not seeri far away-not any farther,
really, at first glance than it seems
from here DIS look up at it from my
west windo 8. Yet it was - miles from
us.
We have all read of the wonderfully
clear air OF .be Rocky mouutain region
and the dec,ptivcncss Of distances here.
but even knowing that | found it simply
impossible 10 reconcile the alleged dis
tunce of the peak with what could see
with my cwn eyes. There positively
was not room for ID, not to say 30. 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 nearet although it began to grow
higher. There seemed to DO no perspec-
tive about 1t. 1t just kept climbing up
and mp. but never approached us at all.
Now that we are here, only dozen
miles from The top of the peak, it still
looks. as 1t nd an hours ride to the east,
about a mil and a half away ColoNado
springs Coz. New York Mail and FIX.
Press.