BUT WE KNOW THAT A REAL, ORDINARY, YET A MARVELOUS WORLD DOES EXIST, AND RIGHT AT HAND. THE 



PRESENT GREAT NATURE MOVEMENT IS AN OUTGOING TO DISCOVER IT ITS TREES, BIRDS, FLOWERS, ITS 



MYRIAD FORMS. THIS IS THE MEANING OF THE COUNTLESS MANUALS, THE " KN O W-TO- HO w" BOOKS, AND THE 

 NATURE STUDY OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. AND THIS DESIRE TO KNOW NATURE IS THE REASONABLE, NATURAL 



PREPARATION FOR THE DEEPER INSIGHT THAT LEADS TO COMMUNION WITH HER A DESIRE TO BE TRACED 



MORE DIRECTLY TO AGASSIZ, AND THE HOSTS OF TEACHERS HE INSPIRED, PERHAPS, THAN THE POET-ESSAY- 

 ISTS LIKE EMERSON AND THOREAU AND BURROUGHS. Dallas /.Off S/lltrp /'/I " 'They Lay Of the /,(!»</" 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



EDUCATION AND RECREATION 



VOL II 



APRIL, 1909 



No. 1 



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8 



A Visit to a Western Ranch 



BY EARL DOUGLASS, PITTSBURG, PA. 



OR months we had been 

 living in a stone cabin in 

 a land of sage-brush, cac- 

 tus, and prairie-dogs. We 

 had long wished to explore 

 the more broken country to 

 the eastward, and, at last, 

 we found the opportunity. Though 

 we started in good season in the 

 morning, before we reached the high 

 hills the sun was pouring its heat on 

 the sandy waste which reflected it 

 back with added intensity. 



We stopped to eat our lunch at a 

 "wash," or ravine, cut deep into a red 

 sandy flat. Here the sage-brush and 

 other shrubs were more rank, and a 

 little pool furnished a drink for the 

 thirsty horses. 



Soon after lunch we reached the 

 eastern border of the L T inta Basin, 

 where the rocks form a ridge several 

 miles in width. They slope steeply 

 to the westward, so, as we travelled 

 to the eastward, we came to older and 



older formations. The first beds were 

 fine light green slate-like rocks many 

 hundreds of feet in thickness composed 

 of many hundreds of thousands of thin 

 layers. In these, a few miles away, 

 we had found hosts of insects, such 

 as ants, moscpiitoes, bugs, beetles, etc., 

 that had fallen into the water and had 

 been buried in the mud ages ago. But 

 as Kipling says, 'That is another 

 story." Then we passed a formation 

 that in Wyoming and New Mexico 

 had yielded bones of little horses not 

 bigger than a fox, small animals very 

 distantly related to the tapirs and 

 rhinoceroses and many beasts more 

 strange than those of fairy tales. Next 

 we came to a bed where ancient forests 

 had decayed and left layers of coal 

 and impressions of leaves in the rocks. 

 At last we descended a steep slope 

 into a large valley, which, by the 

 action of the running water, had been 

 carved out of the shales which had 

 been formed from mud that had ac- 



Copyright 1909 by The Agassiz Association, Stamyford, Conn. 



