THE EARTH FRAME 



201 



cohesiveness and its solidity. But a few years 

 ago one could ride over the prairies of North- 

 west America could ride for weeks up and over 

 the rolling divides, through the tall grass where 

 the horse's hoofs made scarcely a sound, where 

 there was no tree nor lake nor river nor any 

 trace of human habitation. There seemed no 

 end to the vast stretch of grass and sky. How 

 very impressive it all seemed ! How calm and 

 serene the great motionless swells of the prai- 

 rie ! Rolled in their wave-forms, they had not 

 moved nor changed. They were probably cast 

 in those forms ages before the Indian and the 

 buffalo came. The tall grass wove a protecting 

 mesh over them so that wind and rain should 

 not shift them. They lay silent and immovable 

 for so many centuries. But the plough is now 

 ribbing their hollows and breaking their backs. 

 They will wash into lakes and rivers and flatten 

 down into plains, now that the white man and 

 his civilization have come. 



But a few years ago one could hunt the deer, 

 the bear, and the moose in the great forests of 

 Minnesota and Wisconsin could hunt and walk 

 for days and weeks without coming to the end 

 of those " Big Woods/' as they used to be called. 

 The great pines, oaks, sycamores, and elms, 



Perma- 

 nence of the. 

 prairie*. 



In theforett 

 primeval. 



