The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1908-08-14
WHAT WAS seen
BY THE EDITORS
IN HILLS COUNTRY
Wonders and Beauties of Pres
ent Mingled With Prophecy
of the Future.

of the Future.
Belle Fourchc S. D., Aug. 12.-one
hundred editors, including wives.
sweethearts. sons and daughters, have
just finished q 10 days outing in the
Black Hills. the switzerland of Amer
ica. y description of what they saw
would make a continuous story almost
like Tennyson's Brook. Glowing ON for
ever"
They saw everywhere school house
yards bare, treeless and uninvitIng, be-
cause school boards lack culture or
forethought These Fairgrounds OF our
Children the cradles wherein are rocked
the makers of history yet to be. Fu-
ture citizens whose hands Will guide
the ship of state and gauge the des-
tiny of the nation in the next genera
ton. All these children planted as 1T
We're in n desert, stunted in their love
for the beautiful. Dwarfed into the
belief that barrenness and sterility are
a necessary equivalent to an education.
Weakened to conform to the whitening
grace and shifting dust which is ever
q part and parcel of their daily school
life.
They saw and enjoyed the great
plunge baths. whose warm crystal
waters dispel disease, prolong life and
drive dull care away. Where the head
gets heavy and the heart gets light.
Where the feet are wont to tread the
palaces of the sky" While the head is
hunting CLAIMS at the bottom of the
pond.
Impressive Scenery.
They ralnbled through Wind cave,
whose chambers are more artistically
chiseled than the tomb of any dead
dait nf n11 in,
some race. civilized beyond our present
dreams of perfection. used these sub
terranean caverns in which to train
their youth in color form and beauty.
certain it is that no painter has yet
lived, whose thought was SO inspired,
or hand so deftly trained as to place
upon canvas, anything that would COM
pare with these matchless forms which
nature has here unfolded With such
lavish hand
They saw Sylvan lake among the
clouds, where the "Storm King" drills
his subjects in battle array. Clouds
march and countermarch in solemn
grandeur and as the lightnings flash.
enveoping the beholder. peals of thun-
der seem to roll adown the mountain
side, like great boulders loosened from
the overhanging lodges. Here the Wis
| itor breathes an air laden with me-
dlcinal properties that quickly dispels
diseases like hay fever and kindred
kinds common in hot weather.
Railroads, Dozen Deep.
They saw railroads in tiers of doz-
en-. from high above the surface where
great trunk lines carry freight and pas
sengers, to deep down in the earth
where the blind mule slowly drags his
ore car through a Shiny tunnel to the
hoist. They saw the greatest gold mill
In the world with it's myriad stamps
pounding away on rock seemingly as
worthless as common clay. Up and
down in creaking cages, whirred
through shaking hoists, these editors
went or crawled like noisome toads
through tunnels and caverns, where
men moulded by long service, Injured
| to every hardship, like gnomes of old.
with a duh light and spectral tools,
drilled and blasted and picked the gold
bearing rocks, hundreds and thousands
OF feet beneath city teeming with life
and luXuriating in the wealth drawn
from these mines in the bowels of the
earth.
High up over the mountain tops they
We're carried by the trains that Kissed
ana craWled like serpents in devious
ways, through dark canyons and down
rocky sorges decked with overhanging
everSreens, while below was the rush
Of gurgling waters that shimmered
and glstened in the sunbeams. whose
waves impelled by the sportive trout
They saw torrential streams flowing
from their mountain Businesses that
when harnessed in the future are des-
tined to turn more wheels of com
merce than are now operated in all that
part of our state east of the Missour
river.
Second "Panama Ditch"
They visited the big ditch" with it:
50 miles of main channel and more thar
5oO miles Of laterals, but they failed te
realize that this area is certain to SUP
port in the future. a larger population
than is at present contained in the
state. They saw and marveled at tht
stupendous magnitude of this irrigation
project. Wondered at the millions o
dollars. recklessly expended so far as
the East can see, in order to revive al
apparently l1feless soil. To concede sue
cess IN this seeming chimerical under
taking is to admit that we live in al
age Of wonderful achievement
They saw alkaline lands, woefull,
barren. dotted only with sage brusf
and cactus. as uninviting to settlers a.
the great Sahara desert. Yet when thi
land is touched with the magic want
OF irrigation it is suddenly TRANSFORMED
into an Eden-like garden, giving re
turns for outlay more than double tha
of the best farms in the humid regions
They saw the prairie dog on his ma
tive heath. not unlike the Teddy bear
in size and ferociousness, instead of lils
the st. Bernard or timber wolf, as an
ticipated.
Wonderful Possibilities.
They saw cows in countless numbers
wandering unmilked DER the plain,
the precursors of the wealth producin,
dairy and creamery, which in time will
adorn every valley and shape the fu
tire after its own civilizing ways.
They saw the sun baked desert OF
one side Of the Belle Fourche river
while on the other side, under irriga
ton, were tempting gardens, tree
loaded with fruit, and alfalfa fields, tn
pride Of this region and the envy Of a
dairymen.
They saw innumerable shacks of tn
grasshopper farmer. who with tent an
fishing rod expect to hold down a clair
and later to sell out to some horn
handed son Of toll at kingly figure
Many of thasa fra1 an,uore fno,,. 4 l.