Beyond the Hundredth Meridian

“Here geological and human history have at least a poetic similarity. Here the earth has had a slow, regular pulse. It rose and fell for millions of years under carboniferous, Permian, Triassic oceans, under cretaceous seas, under the fresh-water lakes of the Eocene, before it was heaved up and exposed to rain and frost and running water and the sandblast winds. Mountains were carved out of its great tables and domes, river systems cut into it and formed canyons, elevations were weathered and carried away. What had accumulated pebble by pebble and grain by grain, cemented with lime and silica, folding into itself the shells of sea life, scales of fishes, the compacted houses of corals, began to disintegrate again. Vast cyclic changes have left only traces”. (“Beyond the Hundredth Meridian”, Wallace Stegner, pg 119)

Stegner’s writing approach is similar to Powell’s in a sense that he at times writes through a geologist’s point of view. Then as Stegner branches off into his own style we see more of a political point view. This quote however is a refreshing change of pace of both Powell and Stegner’s styles. Although the quote above has geological references, I can’t help but pick up a sort of poetic essence as well. That last line, “vast cyclic changes have left only traces”, in my opinion has a sorrowful tone to it. As if saying the forces that made these places at some point must have magical and vibrant, but now only traces remain. In doing this I feel that Stegner did a good job personifying this area as traces, to me at least, seem to mean like memories.