Connecticut western news., 1898-10-20

voirs and refresh their land whenever they will.
 Gods Earthly Throne.
 The work has already been grandly begun by the United States government. Over 400 lakes have already been off, cially taken possession of by the nation for the great enterprise of irrigation. Rivers that have been rolling idly !, through these regions, doing nothing 1 on their way to the sea, will be lassoed and corralled and penned up until such ] time as the farmers need them. Under i the same processes the Ohio, the Missis- ! sippi, and all the other 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 irrigating process by which all the arid lands between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are to be fertilized is no new ex- pertinent.
 It has been going on successfully hundreds of years in Spain, in China, in India, in Russia, in Egypt. About 800, ,000, 900 of people of the earth today are kept alive by food raised on irrigat- ed land. And here we have allowed to /, lie waste, given up to rattlesnake and bat and prairie dog, lands enough to 1 support whole nations of industrious population. The work begun will be consummated. Here and there exoep- tional 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 pickax will | discover the reason for it and bring up | from beneath those unproductive sur faces coal and iron and lead and copper and silver and gold. God speed the | geologists and the surveyors, the en- gineers and the senatorial commissions, and the capitalists and the new settlers and the husbandmen, who put their brain and hand and heart to this trans | fguration of the American continent "Streams in the desertl'
 But while speak of the immensity of the continent, must remark it is not an immensity of monotone or tame ness. The larger some countries are, the worse for the world. This continent is not more remarkable for it's magnitude than for its wonders of construction. Yosemite and the adjoining California regions! Who that has seen them can think of them without having his blood jingle? Trees now standing there that were old when Christ ivedl These monarchs of foliage reigned before Cesar or Alexander, and the next thousand years will not shatter their scepter They are the masts of the continent, their canvas spread on the winds, while the old ship bears on its way through the ages!
 Our Nations Playground.
 That valley of the Yosemite is eight miles long and half mile wide and LOGO feet deep. It seems as if it had been the meaning of omnipotence to crowd into as small place as possible some of the most stupendous scenery of tLe world. Some of the cliffs you do not stop to measure by feet, for they are literally mile high. Steep so that neither foot of man or beast ever scaled them, they stand in everlasting defi- ance If Jehovah has a throne on earth, these are its white pillars. Standing 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 mountainsl Yon- der is Sentinel rock. 3,270 feet high, bold, solitary, standing guard among the ages, its top seldom touched, until Q bride, one Fourth of July, mounted it and planted the national standard, and the people down in the valley looked up and saw the head of the mountain tur- baned with stars and stripes. Wonder are the Three Brothers, 4, ,000 feet high !; Clouds Rest, North and South Dome and the heights never captured save by the fiery bayonets of the thunderstorm.
 No pause for the eye, no stopping place for the mind. Mountains hurled on mountains. Mountains in the wake of mountains. Mountains fanked by mountains. Mountains split. Mountains ground. Mountains fallen. Mountains triumphant. As though Mont Blanc and the Adirondacks and Mount Wash ington were here uttering 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 so thin you can see the face of the noun tain behind it. Wonder is Yosemite falls, dropping 2,634 feet, 16 times greater descent than that of Niagara. These waters dashed to death on the rocks, so that the white spirit of these slain waters ascending in robe of mist seeks the heavens. Wonder is Nevada falls, plunging TOO feet, the water in arrows, the water in rockets, the water h pearls, the water in amethysts, the water in diamonds That cascade filings down the rocks enough jewels to array all the earth in beauty and rushes on until it drops into very hell of waters, the smoke of their torment ascending forever and ever.
 The Work of Gods TroweI.
 But the most wonderful part of this American continent is the Yellowstone park. My two visits there made upon me an impression that will last forever. Go in by the Moneida route, as we did this summer, and save 250 miles of rail reading, your stagecoach taking you through day of scenery as captivating and sublime as the Yellowst<ee park it. self. After all poetry has exhausted it. self concerning Yellowstone park and all the Morans and Bierstadts and the other enchanting artists have completed their canvas there will be other revela- tions to make and other stories of it's beauty and wrath, splendor and agony to be recited. The Yellowstone park is the geologist 8 paradise. By oheapening of travel may it become the nation $ playground In some portions of it there seems to be the anarchy of the clements. Fire and water and the vapor born of that marriage terrific. Geyser cones or hills of crystal that have been over 5, 1000 years growingl In places the earth, throbbing, sobbing, groaning, quaking with aqueousparoxysm. At the expira- tion of every 65 minutes one of the gey- sers tossing its boiling water 1855 feet T. c.- ,,kr