Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1898-11-25

BAD LanUS OF Montana ana tne GTedt
American Desert" l am glad that you
mentioned that. With, twenty-five
years there will not be between the
Atlantic and Pacific coasts hundred
miles of land not reclaimed either by
farmers pillow or miners crowbar. BY
irrigation, the waters of the rivers and
the showers of Heaven, in what are
called the rainy season, will be gath
cred into great reservoirs, and through
aqueducts let down where and when
the people want them. Utah is an OBJ
iect lesson. Some parts of that ter
ritory which were so barren that a
spear of grass could not have been
raised there in hundred years, are
now rich as Lancaster county farms OF
New Jersey. Experiments have proved
that ten acres of ground irrigated
from waters gathered in great hyro-
logical basins will produce as much as
so acres from the downpour of rain as
seen in our region. We have our
freshets and our drougths. AS you
take pitcher and get it full of water,
and then set it on table and take a
drink out of it when you are thirsty
and never think of drinking pitcher
full all at once, so Montana and Wyo-
ming 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 refresh their land
whenever they will.
The work has already been grandly
begun by the United States govern
ment. Over 400 lakes have already
been officially taken possession of by
the nation for the great enterprise OF
irrigation. Rivers that have been roll
ing idly through these regions, doing
nothing on their way to the sea, will
be lassoed and corralled and penned
up until such time as the farmers need
them. Under the same processes the
Ohio, the Mississippi, and all the 9TH
err rivers will be taught to behave
themselves better, and great basins
will be made to catch the surplus of
waters in times of freshet, and keep
them for times of drought. The irri-
eating process by which all the arid
lands between the Atlantic and Paci-
fc oceans are to be fortified is no
new experiment.
1t has been going on successfully
hundreds of years in Spain, China, in
India, in Russia, in Egypt. About
S0O,0OO,0OO of people of the earth to-
day are kept alive on food raised on ir-
rigated land And here we have al
lowed to lie waste, given up to rattle
snake and bat and prairie dog, lands
enough to support whole nations of
industrious population. The work be-
gun will be consummated. Here and
there exceptional lands may be stub
born 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 rea-
son for it, and bring mp from beneath
those unproductive surfaces coal and
iron and lead and copper and gold
God speed the biologists and survey
ors, the engineers and the senatorial
commissions, and the capitalists and
the new settlers and the husbandmen,
who put their brain and hand and
heart to this TRANSPORTATION of the
American continent! Streams in the
DESERT"
But while ! speak of the immensely
of the continent, | must remark it is
not an immensely of monotone or
tameness. The larger some countries
are, the worse for the world. This
continent is not more remarkable for
its magnitude than for its wonders OF
construction. Yosemite and the adj.
joining California regionsl Who that
has seen them can think of them with
out having his blood Jingle? Trees
now standing there were old when
Christ lived! These monarchs OF
foliage reigned before Alexander, and
the next 1000 years will not shattei
their scepter! They are the masts OF
the continent, their canvas spread OF
the winds, while the old ship bears or
its way through the ages!
That valley of the Yosemite is eigh
miles long and a half mile wide, ant
5000 feet deep. 1t seems as if il ha,
been the meaning of Omnipotence t.
|, crowd into as small place as possible
some of the most stupendous scener,
of the world. Some of the cliffs 70,
do not stop to measure by feet, TO
they are literally mile high. Steep S,
that neither foot of man or beast eve
scaled them, they stand in everlasting
defiance. If Jehovah has throne OF
. earth, these are its white pillars
Standing down in this great chasm o
the valley, you look up, and yonder i
Cathedral Rock, vast, gloomy, minste
built for the silent worship of tn
mountains! Yonder is Sentinel rock
3,27O feet high, bold, solitary, standin,
guard among the ages, its top seldom
touched, until bride, one Fourth O
, July, mounted it and planted the ma
tional standards, and the people dow
in the valley looked up and saw tn
head of the mountain turbaned wit
Stars and Stripes! Yonder are. tn
Three Brothers, 1000 feet high
Clouds rest, North and South dome
and the heights never captured say
by the fiery bayonets of the thunde
storm!
No pause for the eye, no stopping
place for the mind. Mountains hurle
on mountains. Mountains in the wax
of mountains. Mountains fanked b
mountains. Mountains split. Noun
tains ground. Mountains faller
: Mountains triumphant. AS thong
Mont Blanc and the Adirondacks an
: Mount Washington were here utter
: ing themselves in one magnifcen
chorus of rock and precipice and wa
' terfall. Sitting and dashing throug