"Great Plains" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stones and precipices became more rare, but in revenge the sandy banks soon began to reflect a heat that was hardly bearable. As the implacable sun neared its zenith the party walked with bent heads and blinded eyes, now dashing through great plains of bamboos, now following the hatchets of the peons through ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... and truly in the physical aspect of Asia and the South of Caucasus, that very destiny of slavery and of partition into great empires, which has always hung over them. The great plains of Asia fit it for the action of cavalry and vast armies—by which the fate of generations is decided in a day; and at the same time fit it for the support of those infinite myriads without object, which make human life cheap and degraded. That this was ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... round Sandynugghur resembles that which is common to all the great plains of India watered by the Ganges and Jumna. The country is for the most part perfectly flat, and cut up into little fields, divided by shallow ditches. Here and there nullahs, or deep watercourses, with tortuous channels and perpendicular ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... sea, and probably formed part of an extensive Southern Continent or great island. The very numerous and remarkable cases of affinity with Malaya, require, however, some closer approximation with these islands, which probably occurred at a later period. When, still later, the great plains and tablelands of Hindostan were formed, and a permanent land communication effected with the rich and highly developed Himalo-Chinese fauna, a rapid immigration of new types took place, and many of the less specialised forms of mammalia ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... West when I get out. I'm going into the cattle business on the great plains, and I'm going to be a rich man, and then I'm going to come back. I hope you won't get married before that time for I'll have something to say to you. If you run across any pictures of the mountains or the plains I wisht you'd send them on to me. Next to you I ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... the wild West—painters in search of the picturesque— naturalists whose love of their favourite study had drawn them from their comfortable closets to search for knowledge under circumstances of extremest difficulty—and sportsmen, who, tired of chasing small game, were on their way to the great plains to take part in the noble sport of hunting the buffalo. I was myself one of ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... water enough at times; only, those rivers of the great plains, like the Platte and the Kansas and the Arkansas, are so wasteful of their supply in the spring that by July they are gasping for a shower. So, part of the year they revel in luxury, and during the rest they go shabby—like ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... now extended in the distance before them; they were the same among which poor Michael Carriere had perished. They form the southeast boundary of the great plains along the Columbia, dividing the waters of its main stream from those of Lewis River. They are, in fact, a part of a long chain, which stretches over a great extent of country, and includes in its links the Snake ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... ostrich are found on the great plains of South America, and one other in Australia. None of these attain the gigantic proportions of the African, nor are their plumes at all comparable in beauty or value to those ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... receipt of this letter, a look of joy came over the face of the candidate and there was a visible exhilaration throughout his party. Men, worn, exhausted, and covered with the dust of the great plains, began to freshen up themselves as much as they could; there was a great brushing of soiled clothing, a hauling out of clean collars, a sharpening of razors, and a general inquiry, "How do I look?" The whole atmosphere of the train was changed, and it became much brighter and livelier. ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... was far greater than has been usually imagined. On the broad prairies of Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana ranged innumerable herds. The area under cultivation was almost equal to that north of the Potomac and the Ohio. The pastoral districts—the beautiful Valley of Virginia, the great plains of Georgia, the fertile bottoms of Alabama, were inexhaustible granaries. The amount of live stock—horses, mules, oxen, and sheep—was actually larger than in the North; and if the acreage under wheat was less extensive, the deficiency was more ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... a surprise for you, Elsie," said Mrs. Valentin, a day and a night eastward of the Sierras. They were on the Great Plains, at that stage of an overland journey which suggests, in the words of a clever woman, the advisability of "taking a tuck in ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... country toward the north where maize could not be cultivated because the vast herds of wild cattle devoured it.[2] They penetrated so far that they entered the range of the roving prairie tribes; for, one day, as they pushed their way with difficulty across great plains covered with tall, rank grass, they met a band of savages who dwelt in lodges of skins sewed together, subsisting on game alone, and wandering perpetually from place to place. Finding neither gold nor the South Sea, for both of which they ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... of city beyond city, cities on great plains, cities beside great rivers, vast cities along the sea margin, cities girdled by snowy mountains. Over a great part of the earth the English tongue was spoken; taken together with its Spanish American and Hindoo and Negro and "Pidgin" dialects, it was the everyday language of two-thirds of ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... Louis at the same hour, the owner of the grain elevators, in which is stored the crops of the great plains, there to be kept until the needs of the people shall place an exorbitant price upon every bushel, was smothered to death in the hold of one of his own ships. With him died the martyr who had succeeded in bringing a just retribution upon the head of ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... SHREW.—J. S. Findley and I, in a forthcoming paper, review the distribution of Blarina brevicauda in the Great Plains region, recording B. b. carolinensis from the extreme southeastern and southwestern counties of Nebraska. A series of five shrews of this species recently obtained from three miles south and two miles east of Nebraska City in Otoe County, ...
— Distribution of Some Nebraskan Mammals • J. Knox Jones
... Mignonette close at hand—which had bloomed and died and cast its seed amid the old walls and falling stones since Marie Antoinette had taught the women of France to take an interest in their gardens; and from the great plains beyond—flat and fat—carefully laid there by the Garonne to give the world its finest wines, rose up the subtle scent of vines ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... distinct subdivision, of which Lake Winnipeg may be regarded as the centre. This subdivision, like the valley of the Mississippi, is distinguished for the fertility of its soil, and for the extent and gentle slope of its great plains, watered by rivers of great length, and admirably adapted for steam-navigation. It has a climate not exceeding in severity that of many portions of Canada and the Eastern States. It will, in all respects, compare favorably with some of the most densely peopled portions of the continent of Europe. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... beneath volcanic mountains—warm mineral springs—the wide expanse and depths of the ocean—the upper regions of the atmosphere, and even the surface of perpetual snow—all support organic beings." Here he found reason to believe that all the great plains which he was surveying had been raised above the sea level in a ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... title from the range of hills which the old French geographers named the "Laurentides." These hills are composed of Laurentian Rocks, and form the watershed between the valley of the St Lawrence river on the one hand, and the great plains which stretch northwards to Hudson Bay on the other hand. The main area of these ancient deposits forms a great belt of rugged and undulating country, which extends from Labrador westwards to Lake Superior, and then bends northwards towards the Arctic Sea. Throughout this extensive ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... of hills and mountains stretch the great plains beyond the distant eastern horizon; not suddenly and in one smooth slope, but foothills and small broken mesas end in scattered and irregular bluffs, these gradually blending and losing themselves ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... was running a stage line, between Chicago and Davenport, no railroads then having been built west of Chicago. In 1849 he got the California fever and made up his mind to cross the great plains—which were then and for years afterwards called the American Desert—to the Pacific coast. He got ready a complete outfit and started with quite a party. After proceeding a few miles, all but my father, and greatly to his disappointment, changed their minds for some reason and abandoned the enterprise. ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... this city to travel further, you ride for seven days over great plains, finding harbour to receive you at three places only. There are many fine woods [producing dates] upon the way, such as one can easily ride through; and in them there is great sport to be had in hunting and hawking, there being partridges and quails and abundance of other game, so that the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... standing out midst the sea of forgetfulness, even as the islands in the West Indies stand out midst the ocean. But each of these island peaks represents a submerged continent. Drain off the sea, and the mountains ease off toward the foothills and the hills toward the great plains that make up the hidden land. Thus the isolated memories of the past are all united, and will at length stand forth in perfect revelation. Verily, conscience is a witness, secretly taking notes, even as good Latimer in his cell overheard ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... the strong sunshine marching Beyond the mountains, far from this soft coast, Until we almost see the great plains ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... because he was usually found in and around the crude localities where raw resources in property were being developed; and because, previous to the advent of agriculture, the two vast wilderness resources were minerals and cattle. The mines of California and the Rockies; the cattle of the great plains—write the story of these and you have much of the story of Western desperadoism. For, in spite of the fact that the ideal desperado was one who did not rob or kill for gain, the most usual form of early desperadoism had to do with attempts at ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... presently into a better country, and the way led for a day or two through a typical part of the Great Plains, not a flat region, but one of low, monotonous swells. Now and then they crossed a shallow little creek, and occasionally they came to pools, some of which were tinged with alkali. There were numerous small depressions, two or three ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... can paint the life of the "Chasseurs of the Great Plains," tell of the gathering of the mighty Halfbreed clan going forth—each spring and fall—in a tumult of carts and horsemen to their boundless preserves, the home of the buffaloes, whose outrangers were the grizzly bear, the branching elk, the flying antelope that skirted the great columns, the ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... of Nineveh reposed on the silt of the Tigris. Upper India is the Indus; Agra and Delhi are Ganges and Jumna mud; China is the Hoang Ho and the Yang-tse-Kiang; Burmah is the paddy field of the Irrawaddy delta. And so many great plains in either hemisphere consist really of nothing else but mud-banks of almost incredible extent, filling up prehistoric Baltics and Mediterraneans, that a glance at the probable course of future evolution in this respect may help us to understand and to realize more fully the ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... is wonderful, but, Paul, this is nothing to what you can see on the great plains. When I was a captive with the northwestern Indians I've seen a herd that was passing our party all day, and it was also so wide you ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler |
