1
/
of
1
Larry Eifert
River World - Wild Life of the MIssissippi River
River World - Wild Life of the MIssissippi River
Regular price
$4.99 USD
Regular price
Sale price
$4.99 USD
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Quantity
Couldn't load pickup availability
River World - Wild Life of the Mississippi River
By Virginia S. Eifert
Originally published in 1959 with line drawings by the author, plus a bonus section of Virginia’s photos and extensive research materials from the original publication.
“A thrilling kaleidoscope of nature!”
This is an ambitious book, just as the Mississippi is an ambitious river. Much has been written about our mightiest stream and its effect on our civilization and character. This book differs from its predecessors because it depicts the river almost as if man did not exist. Here is the eternal face of the river, from the ice of the north to the streaming bayou of the south. Here is the great mid-continent flyway of immigrating birds, the muddy moving world of fishes, the shifting banks of the myriad willows, the mysterious bottom land of tiny creatures, the surface film of water striders, the close-by air of the Mayflies, the soaring heights of the eagle. Away from the water, yet molded by it in centuries and in last spring's floods, lie the banks, marshlands, cliffs and bars.
In short, this is the river of nature in all its aspects, deliberately excluding man and his settlements and impositions. It is a thorough book which necessarily means a rich, even crowded book, but it is so varied and changing as it ranges over two thousand miles, through vividly different climates and into the countless forms of life—plants, animals, insects—of all kinds, that it becomes a thrilling kaleidoscope of natural history in its many phases, all bound together by the majesty of our greatest river.
Bonus material: SOUTH TO THS SEA April 8 - 25, 1956
Virginia somehow talked her way onto several working towboats, business boats that simple didn’t carry passengers and didn’t have such things as safety lines. In fact, the boat in this trip journal, the Cape Zephyr, carried over 2,000,000 gallons of gasoline which at one point lost power and plowed into a sand bank. This was found in a binder, unread for decades, unedited and typed with few corrections. Many of these sections show a clear path into River World and her other river books. In other words, these are her creative notes that later books came from.
While it is a chronicle of an amazing trip few women ever experienced in the 1950’s (or now), it also hints at many nature, social, economic, diet and health issues to come in America.
By Virginia S. Eifert
Originally published in 1959 with line drawings by the author, plus a bonus section of Virginia’s photos and extensive research materials from the original publication.
“A thrilling kaleidoscope of nature!”
This is an ambitious book, just as the Mississippi is an ambitious river. Much has been written about our mightiest stream and its effect on our civilization and character. This book differs from its predecessors because it depicts the river almost as if man did not exist. Here is the eternal face of the river, from the ice of the north to the streaming bayou of the south. Here is the great mid-continent flyway of immigrating birds, the muddy moving world of fishes, the shifting banks of the myriad willows, the mysterious bottom land of tiny creatures, the surface film of water striders, the close-by air of the Mayflies, the soaring heights of the eagle. Away from the water, yet molded by it in centuries and in last spring's floods, lie the banks, marshlands, cliffs and bars.
In short, this is the river of nature in all its aspects, deliberately excluding man and his settlements and impositions. It is a thorough book which necessarily means a rich, even crowded book, but it is so varied and changing as it ranges over two thousand miles, through vividly different climates and into the countless forms of life—plants, animals, insects—of all kinds, that it becomes a thrilling kaleidoscope of natural history in its many phases, all bound together by the majesty of our greatest river.
Bonus material: SOUTH TO THS SEA April 8 - 25, 1956
Virginia somehow talked her way onto several working towboats, business boats that simple didn’t carry passengers and didn’t have such things as safety lines. In fact, the boat in this trip journal, the Cape Zephyr, carried over 2,000,000 gallons of gasoline which at one point lost power and plowed into a sand bank. This was found in a binder, unread for decades, unedited and typed with few corrections. Many of these sections show a clear path into River World and her other river books. In other words, these are her creative notes that later books came from.
While it is a chronicle of an amazing trip few women ever experienced in the 1950’s (or now), it also hints at many nature, social, economic, diet and health issues to come in America.
Share
