Barren land

“ No timber is found there that deserves the name. No trees but glandular dwarf birches, willows, and black spruce, small and stunted. Even these only grow in isolated valleys. More generally the surface is covered with coarse sand—the debris of granite or quartz-rock—upon which no vegetable, save the lichen or the moss, can find life and nourishment.
In one respect these “Barren Grounds” are unlike the deserts of Africa: they are well watered. In almost every valley there is a lake; and though many of these are land-locked, yet do they contain fish of several species. ”

“ About half a mile from the cabin we passed a small Prairie, and soon entered the woods again, and then some barrens. A barren is land nearly destitute of timber, but much overrun with scrubby underwood. A great deal of the land we had passed from Bonpas was good, and some of the timber very fine: I thought these barrens a poor sample of the country. After passing these barrens for more than a mile, we got sight of the Prairies. ”

“ The physical character of the Barren Grounds is of the rolling or prairie type. Standing on the first elevation after passing beyond the last timber, you look north across a great expanse of desert, apparently flat country dotted with lakes innumerable, and broken here and there by rock-topped ridges. When you get actually into the country, you find these ridges, though not high, are yet higher than they look to be, and the travelling in general very rough. In summer there is no travel over the Barren Grounds, except by canoe ”

“ The Barren Hillside We talk of the barrenness of the mountains, and barren in a sense they are, when contrasted with the teeming wealth of the plain, yet the bleakest of them, if studied with sympathy and insight, will be found to have a living and life-giving freshness of its own. ”

“ But in the mean time the fertile does have sought a lower country with patches of small brush interspersed with open passages. There they can feed with their fawns, completely concealed, but able, by merely raising the head, to survey the entire landscape for the threatening of danger. The barren does, on the other hand, you will find through the timber and brush, for they are careless of all responsibilities either to offspring or headgear. ”

“ Turn which ever way we would, far back beyond our own lovely vallies and green hills, back up to the bleak region of glaciers, where miles of bush and hundreds of acres of steep hill-side, formed the back-est of "back country," every inch of land was taken up. No fear had those distant Squatters of "cockatoos," or even of miners; for no one came their way who could possibly help it. ”

“ The irregular border of the forest reaches in some places to within four or five hundred yards of the road, forming a barrier to the searching of a field-glass at 1000 yards from our position. Away to the right the valley opens out like a map, with villages dotted here and there among green plantations in the middle distance, and beyond a great rolling stretch of country looking to the naked eye like some large barren heath, but showing in the field-glass the patch-quilt effect of innumerable tiny strips of variegated cultivation. ”

“ The crossing of the Great Basin was dreaded by the early emigrants on their way to the Pacific coast. In many cases the locations of the few springs and water-courses were unknown, and the journey over the vast barren stretches was fraught with danger.
Stand upon a mountain in the desert some clear day in summer and you will see range after range, with intervening sandy wastes, stretching away to the horizon. The air below is tremulous with heat, and every living thing that can move has sought the shade of some rock or cliff. ”

“ The direction of the migrations, as reported in some instances, is just the reverse of that taken at the present time by the Barren Ground species during its normal movements at corresponding seasons. ”

“ Nothing but the absolute nakedness of desolation could seem to him dreary. But this region must have satisfied even a person accustomed to deserts and pastures of rocks. It is a jumble of savage hills and jagged ravines, a land of limestone rocks and ledges, whitish gray in color, glaring in the sun, even the stones wasted by age, relieved nowhere by a tree, or rejoiced by a single blade of grass. ”

“ A few minutes rapid riding brought him to the edge of the bare down, which was in fact a mere ridge, with but a few level yards at the summit, beyond these, sinking down almost precipitately into a singular lap or basin of land, nearly circular in form, and about two miles in diameter, walled in as it were from the external world, on every side, by tall, bare, grassy downs, treeless and bleak, without a sign of human habitation or of human culture, and limiting the range of the eye to that narrow and cheerless horizon. ”

“ It was necessary, of course, that the place to be selected should be pretty low land, and near the river; for if the land was high, the work of excavating the basins would have been so much increased as to render the undertaking impracticable. ”

“ The general observer, if he takes his stand on the edge of hills by which this basin is bounded, will see the enclosing character of the ridge, as well as the less conspicuous circle of somewhat elevated land occupying the central portion of the field, and which is separated by a valley or plain from the surrounding ridge. ”

“ Besides the heavy timbered and prairie land, there are large tracts of what are here called barrens, being of a light soil comparatively speaking, though very productive, and which are thinly covered with white and black oak, sometimes of stinted growth, but mostly of a handsome and useful size. The soil is generally a fine sand, mixed with decayed vegetables and sometimes gravelly, with here and there a granitic boulder. ”

“ The Barren grounds that skirt the polar regions of North America, and which include the country to the east of the Rocky Mountains, and north of the great lakes, constitute a region of low hills with rounded summits, and more or less precipitous sides, separated by narrow valleys. ”

“ They are covered with a thin and scrubby vegetation, consisting of berry-bearing plants and dwarf bushes of various species, resembling the moorlands of the north of England, and differing only in the kind of vegetation and its scantier quantity. Bare patches of gravel and boulders and crumbling fragments of rock are frequently met with upon the barrens, and they are generally altogether destitute of vegetable soil. But only on the barrens is it possible to explore the interior of the country with any kind of ease or expedition. ”

“ Crossing from ridge to ridge, high in the air, on long straddling trestles as if flowing on stilts, or down and up across valleys and hills, imprisoned in iron pipes to strike and wash away hills and miles of the skin of the mountain’s face, riddling, stripping every gold gully and flat. These are the white man’s marks made in a few feverish years, to say nothing of mills, fields, villages, scattered hundreds of miles along the flank of the Range. ”

“ A traveller, familiar with the low grounds of England, when he first enters the northern lowlands is at once impressed by their much more limited extent. He finds them to occupy comparatively restricted spaces between uplands and highlands, their largest expanse lying in the broad depression between the southern border of the Highland mountains and the great tract of high pastoral land in the southern counties. Another considerable area of them intervenes between these southern uplands and the flanks of the Cheviot Hills. ”

“ We dipped into the basins and troughs of the land, surmounted ridge after ridge, crossed water-courses and ravines, passed by cultivated fields, and through villages smelling strongly of cattle, by good-natured groups of natives, until, ascending a long, gradual slope, we heard, on a sudden, hurrahing in front, and then we too, with the lagging rear, knew that those in the van were in view of the Great Lake! ”

“ In the central zone, lying parallel to the former, the plain and the forest long contend with each other for the possession of the soil; the trees prevail for some distance, but gradually dwindle into stunted and thorny bushes, only reappearing in belts of forest along the banks of the streams, until finally in the south, the victory remains with the plain, which displays its smooth, velvet-like surface unbounded and unbroken. ”

“ But science further makes known to us that beyond the cliffy margin on which we stand, there once stretched an ampler land that has long disappeared. Far over the English Channel the chalk downs once extended with their undulating summits, their smooth grassy slopes, their deep cooms and quiet bournes. That vanished land ran southward, until it ended off in a range of white precipices. The rain that fell on its surface gathered into a river that flowed northward through Freshwater Gap into the Solent. ”

“ On both the traveller often perishes, but from different causes. On the Saära it is thirst that kills; upon the Barren Grounds hunger is more frequently the destroyer. In the latter there is but little to be feared on the score of water. That exists in great plenty; or where it is not found, snow supplies its place. But there is water everywhere. Hill succeeds hill, bleak, rocky, and bare. Everywhere granite, gneiss, or other primitive rocks, show themselves. ”

“ The country spreads into a succession of prairies, lakes, and copses, through which the traveller can ride with ease, safe from the badger-holes which form such an objectionable feature in more southern prairies. At times the river-bed fills up the entire bottom of the deep valley through which it runs; but more frequently a wooded terrace lies between the foot of the ridge and the brink of the water, or the land rises to the upper level in a series of rounded and less abrupt ascents. ”

“ While the leading elements of the topography have remained for many long ages essentially the same, there have arisen since the beginnings of history, many important minor changes in the landscape, mainly due to human interference, whereby the progress of the population has been more or less affected. Prominent among these changes has been the clearing of the dense woodlands that once covered so large a proportion of the surface. Innumerable bogs and fens have been drained and converted into arable land; lakes have been silted up by natural causes or have been emptied by artificial drainage. ”

“ But when this dreary barrier is passed the surface features of the country in general are found to be finely molded and collocated, smooth valleys, wide as compared with their depth, trending back from the shore to a range of mountains that appear blue in the distance, and round-topped hills, with their side curves finely drawn, touching and blending in beautiful groups, while scarce a single rock-pile is seen or sheer-walled bluff to break the general smoothness. ”

“ We stood, as it were, in the centre of barrenness. I feel it impossible, indeed, to describe the scene, familiar as it was to me. The dark and broken line of the Barrier Range lay behind us to the south; eastward the horizon was bounded by the hills I had lately visited, and the only break in the otherwise monotonous colour of the landscape was caused by the plains we had crossed before entering the pine forest. From the south-west round to the east northwards, the whole face of the country was covered with a gloomy scrub that extended like a sea to the very horizon. ”

“ This Great Basin is yet to be adequately explored. And here, on quitting the banks of a sterile river, to enter on arable mountains, the remark may be made, that, on this western slope of our continent, the usual order or distribution of good and bad soil is often reversed; the river and creek bottoms being often sterile, and darkened with the gloomy and barren artemisia; while the mountain is often fertile, and covered with rich grass, pleasant to the eye, and good for flocks and herds. ”

“ The sum total of environmental factors apparently makes the Barren Grounds a distinctly more favorable summer habitat for the present species than the wooded country, since the latter region is virtually entirely deserted at that season. In general, the wooded country must be a more favorable winter habitat, since the bulk of the animals evidently resort to it at that time ”

“ Around it are about thirty acres of arable land, sheltered by the slopes that sweep down towards it on three sides; but beyond that little patch of cultivation, the hills around are, as every one knows who has visited that part of France, covered with heath, which, on the table-land at the summit, ends in the sandy unproductive sort of track called landes. It is a bleak and desolate scene, and, even when the sun shines in all his summer brightness, its aspect is wild and solitary ”

“ The arbiter expresses his opinion that the term 'highlands' may properly be applied not only to a hilly and elevated country, but to a tract of land which, without being hilly, divides waters flowing in different directions, and consequently, according to this opinion, the highlands to be sought for are not necessarily a range of mountains, but rather the summit level of the country. ”

“ It is well known, I suppose, that the Barren Grounds are devoid absolutely not only of trees but even of brush, except for some scattered, stunted bushes that in summer are to be found in occasional spots at the water’s edge, but may not be depended upon for fuel. ”

“ The deep valley is therefore the receptacle not only for the water that oozes from its sides, but subterranean channels, bursting as land-springs from all parts of the walls of the valley, wash down the more soluble portions of earth, and continually waste away the soil. ”