Image from page 174 of “Marvels of the new West : a vivid portrayal of the stupendous marvels in the vast wonderland west of the Missouri River : comprising marvels of nature, marvels of race, marvels of enterprise, marvels of mining, marvels of stock-rai
Identifier: marvelsofnewwest1889thay
Title: Marvels of the new West : a vivid portrayal of the stupendous marvels in the vast wonderland west of the Missouri River : comprising marvels of nature, marvels of race, marvels of enterprise, marvels of mining, marvels of stock-raising, and marvels of agriculture, graphically and truthfully described
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: Thayer, William Makepeace, 1820-1898
Subjects:
Publisher: Norwich, Conn. : Henry Bill Pub. Co.
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University
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hould use a piece of the rock on which he split,with this inscription thereon : Horseless and homeless a wandererpassed. The Italian Mountain is in Gunnison County, Colorado, and itssummit, as seen in the cut, is 13,255 feet above the level of the sea.Tourists can reachthe summit withcomparative ease.Pikes Peak is lessthan a thousandfeet higher thanthis mountain, andscarcely affords abetter view to thetraveller who per-severes in his ef-fort to plant hisfeet upon itscrown. It is ofsingular formation,as the illustrationshows, and pre-sents to the stu-dent of geology afruitful subject forinvestigation. The cactus ofthe Gila Desert,Arizona, is a natu-ral phenomenon.To those who areaccustomed to seea cactus in a flow-er-pot a few inches high, these Cacti Giganti of the New West must appear mar-vellous indeed. Some of them are sixty feet high. The illustra-tion shows the different forms of growth ; though many are a perfectcone, from twenty to sixty feet high, with a diameter of three feet
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ARIZONA CACTI. 134 MARVELS OF THE NEW WEST. near the ground. Their color is of different shades of green and yeUlow; and they are covered with sha.rp thorns, some of them threeinches in length. Each cone-cactus bears a single flower on its topannually, and yields a kind of fruit which the natives highly prize. Many of the huge cones have several smaller ones growing out oftheir trunks, at different heights, and they shoot upwards, parallel tothe trunks that bear them. There is no tree or shrub around themover three feet high, so that they stand out in bold relief over thebarren waste. Woodpeckers are plenty as rattlesnakes and lizards in this desertcountry, and the former elude the destructive instincts of the latterby pecking holes in the cactus near its top, where they build theirnests and rear their young in safety. Captain Button, of the United States Survey, says : — * Many species of cactus are seen, the most abundant of whichare the opuntias, or prickly-pears. Of these there
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By Internet Archive Book Images on 1887-01-01 00:00:00