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Show A Book that Would Boom the West. Wo suspect that since Tyndall's picture of an Alpine sky was written, some thousands of English Eng-lish men and women have gone to Switzerland that they might see the picture as nature paints it and to judge for themselves .how accurate the great philosopher transcribed it. We have a little society hero in the West who are calling the attention of the American people to the fact that if they must see Europe, they ought to see America first. Wo are not sure that a wrong course Is not being pursued to lure people this way. We tell of the traveling facilities, of tho hotel accommodations, accommo-dations, of the genial climate and the unexampled scenery, but that is not enough. If Professor Mulr would make the rounds and write up old Shasta and'ltanier and a hundred other of Western West-ern splendors as ho has written up Yosemite write them up in the simple but severe and accurate ac-curate colors of science, then could some real landscape painter follow to catch and transfix the splendors on canvas, and finally could Joaquin Miller be inspired to follow and be told that a few poems were needed to complete the work; and could all these be enclosed in one book, thoughtful men and women would not care whether the paths were smooth or whether tho hotels were comfortable they would come to see; for Professor Mulr's description of Yosemite is superior from every point of ;ew to Tyndall's, or to Ruskin's Alpine pictures though to them na ture was but a grand compilation of the architecture archi-tecture of the universe, and it was their delight to reduce the striking pictures to words, that men far away who are unable to see the originals might gain an idea .of them, as. portrayed by master minds 1 -' Compared with the treasure such a book would-be, it Would not cost much, for Professor Mulr cares nothing for money. Some s'even or eight years ago, when in the late autumn an eager crowd, amid all kinds of hardships, were streaming stream-ing over that farful pass that marks the route to the upper Yukon, Professor Muir was found on foot in the company. A man who knew him accosted ac-costed him with the words: "Professor, has the gold fever caught you at last?" The old man smll.dd and replied: "Oh, no. Gold has no allurement allure-ment f6r me. I heard that beyond the pass a beech grows of a different species from any known to science, and I am going over to see if the statement is true." He, long before, had gone up the coast and brought back his picture of the great glacier that bears his name, but had he stumbled over a mountain of gold he would have noted it merely as a new contribution to science, and would have given away the secret of its whereabouts on his return. He never would have located one claim. Wealthy men of late have been giving away vast sums to universities, to schools, to hospitals, hospit-als, to libraries; a few of their dollars would secure se-cure this book, which would magnify our West in the estimation of the world. Let any one go out three-fourths of a mile from Yreka, California, just before sundown, after tho first fall of snow in the autumn, and, turning the point of a projecting foothill, be brought face to face with Mount Shasta, just when the setting sun is turning to opal and to sapphire the snow on its crest, while the whole mountain stands out In its majesty, white as a planet's light, and his hat will be off and his head will be bowed as quickly as a Chaldean fire worshipper ever prostrated himself before the dawn. And there are a few other mountains as grand. There is at least one river for which Europe lias no equal. There are scenes everywhere in our West as fine as the Old World has, and what is needed are pen pictures of them by one who lias all the imagery of the poet and the searching eye of the scientist. These, supplemented with rt al pictures and with hero and there the thouglits they awaken reduced to harmonious measures, and the cry would be changed in a little while to read: "I mean to see Europe by and by, i"t I must see America first." |