Excerpt from The Great West: Its Attractions and Resources; Containing a Popular Description of the Marvelous Scenery, Physical Geography, Fossils, and Glaciers of This Wonderful Region Eastward, with devious course, among the Wind River Mountains; Through the Sweetwater Valley precipitate leaps the Nebraska; And to the south, from the Fontaine-qui - bout and the Spanish Sierras, Fretted with sands and rocks, and swept by the wind of the desert, Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound, descend to the ocean, Like the great chords of a harp in loud and solemn vibrations. Spreading between these streams are wondrous, beautiful prairies, Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow and sunshine, Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and purple amorphas. Over them wander the buffalo herds and the elk and the roebuck; Over them wander the wolves and herds of riderless horses; Fires that blast and blight, and Winds that are weary with travel Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmael' s children, Staining the desert with blood; and above their terrible war-trail Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vulture, Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered in battle. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.