The Ascent Of Mount Tyndall

Morning dawned brightly upon our bivouac among a cluster of dark firs in the mountain corridor, opened by an ancient glacier of King’s River in the heart of the Sierras. It dawned a trifle sooner than we could have wished, but Professor Brewer and Hoffman had breakfasted before sunrise, and were off with barometer and theodolite upon their shoulders, proposing to ascend our amphitheatre to its head and climb a great pyramidal peak which swelled up against the eastern sky, closing the view in that direction.

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The Grand Falls Of Labrador

The usual method employed was what is technically known as “tracking.” That is, a strong rope, about the thickness of a clothes-line, was tied to the gunwale of the boat just aft of the bow. To the shore end of this broad leather straps were attached. With these across their shoulders, three of the party tugged away along the rocky bank, while number four of our crew, with an oar lashed in the stern, steered a devious course among the rocks and shallows of the river.

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The Muir Glacier

True, I had seen photographs of it; yes, and I had seen photographs of the Cañon of the Yellowstone, and of the Nevada Falls, and of Niagara, just as I have seen paste diamonds; I knew their shapes, and that is all I ever gathered from their portraits.

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Among Florida Alligators

Having organized an expedition to the great Lake Okechobee, some thirty miles due west from the Indian River Inlet, we hired a wagon and pair of mules to carry our tents and necessary baggage, but, no other animals being attainable, only those of us who were fit for a tramp of nearly a hundred miles could go.

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The Sun

Nowhere else does the greater light so rule the day, so measure, so divide, so reign, make so imperial laws, so visibly kindle, so immediately quicken, so suddenly efface, so banish, so restore, as in a plain like this of Suffolk with its enormous sky. 

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The Mountain Charm

A famous writer of the eighteenth century declared that to a civilised mind the mountain solitude was naturally abhorrent. To be impressed was unavoidable, he allowed; to love barrenness and the wilderness, to take delight in shadow and silence, to find peace in loneliness, was unnatural. It is humanity that redeems nature, he added in effect.

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