RiverTime: Ecotravel on the World's Rivers

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State University of New York Press, 20 бер. 2008 р. - 302 стор.
In this engaging travelogue of our world's rivers, great and small, poet and biologist Mary A. Hood reflects on rivers as creators of place. Recounting her journeys along portions of the Mississippi, the Danube, the Amazon, the Yangtze, the Ganges, the Nile, and a dozen small U.S. rivers, Hood weaves together natural history, current environmental and conservation issues, encounters with endangered plants and animals, and tells some interesting tales along the way.

Like a river, the book begins small, with essays that are narrowly focused on themes of environment and place, such as the need to write our world (Three Rivers), how fires (and corporations) control the West (the Flathead), the effect of wind farms on a small town in western New York (the Conhocton), the giant redwoods and how they were preserved (the Klamath), and the search for moose in the great north woods (the Penobscot). The second section expands the themes of environment and place and looks at great world rivers, their long histories, their biological diversity, the effects of human use and tourism, and the paradox of human reverence and destruction. From endangered species to invasive species, from corporate control of national parks to wind farms, from urban sprawl to efforts at conservation and restoration, RiverTime offers insights into our relationship to the environment in the twenty-first century.

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Introduction
1
PART I SMALL UNITED STATES RIVERS
5
PART II THE AMAZON
99
PART III OTHER GREAT WORLD RIVERS
159
Conclusion
247
References
251
Index
265
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Сторінка 166 - Soon were lost in a maze of sluggish and devious waters, Which, like a network of steel, extended in every direction. Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs of the cypress Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses in midair Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient cathedrals.
Сторінка 79 - whether men's land was rich or poor Thar was more in the man than thar was in the land.
Сторінка 38 - Illicium groves! how gaily flutter the radiated wings of the Magnolia auriculata, each branch supporting an expanded umbrella, superbly crested with a silver plume, fragrant blossom, or crimson studded strobile and fruits!
Сторінка 84 - ... occupation, scatter marsh hens as we sink to our knees in mud, open you an oyster with a pocketknife and feed it to you from the shell and say, "There. That taste. That's the taste of my childhood." I would say, "Breathe deeply," and you would breathe and remember that smell for the rest of your life, the bold, fecund aroma of the tidal marsh, exquisite and sensual, the smell of the South in heat, a smell like new milk, semen, and spilled wine, all perfumed with seawater.
Сторінка 8 - At the end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago, the climate was wetter and there was water in the large lake.
Сторінка 163 - In your Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it, you'll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade. I'll be all in clover, and when they look you over, I'll be the proudest fellow in the Easter parade.
Сторінка 84 - A sting ray swims just below the surface like a bird in nightmare. The wind lifts off the island, a messenger bearing the odor of moonsage and honeysuckle and jasmine. In an instant the smell of the night changes, recedes, deepens, then recedes again. It is sharp as vinaigrette, singular as bay rum.
Сторінка 76 - In 1843, a group of Georgians changed the town's name to Crawford, honoring Joel Crawford, a native of their State who had also distinguished himself during the Creek War.
Сторінка 84 - South in heat, a smell like new milk, semen, and spilled wine, all perfumed with seawater [and] the perfect coinage of sand dollars, the shapes of flounders inlaid in sand like the silhouettes of ladies in cameos...

Про автора (2008)

Mary A. Hood is Professor Emerita of Biology at the University of West Florida. She is the author of The Strangler Fig and Other Tales: Field Notes of a Conservationist.

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