The Grasslands
Picture yourself being able to see from horizon to horizon. The land is flat, and covered with different kinds of crops and small bunches of trees. You can see a village near the river. Most houses are made of brick, with some being wood. Power lines run up and down the street.
Close your eyes and the scene changes to a less familiar place. The land is flat with some steep hills nearby. In this scene, instead of brick and wood houses you see houses made out of dung. The ground is dry and barely alive.
Now close your eyes and imagine yet another scene. The sky is almost the only thing you see with gentle rolling hills all around you. Even rows of wheat stretch into the distance. You are near a white picket fenced farm with big cottonwoods shading it from the scorching sun.
You have just visited a collective farm in the Soviet Union, a Masai village in Africa and Abilene, Kansas, which is located in the U.S. These three places are part of the world’s mid-latitude grassland region. Grasslands are usually found in the interior parts of most continents. The world’s grasslands are vast areas covered with grass and leafy plants. They generally have a dry climate, little vegetation, and most grasslands receive only about twenty to thirty inches of rain each year, with most of it coming in the same season.
Some grasslands may even receive up to thirty to forty inches of rain a year!
For example, since the grasslands of the United States have hot summers and mild winters, most of the rain comes from the summer thunderstorms. With this limited amount of rain, only grasses and shrubs can grow. But some grassland areas have enough rain to support some trees such as cottonwood.
With this kind of climate and vegetation, it is no wonder that they have low human population densities. Because there are not that many people living in this kind of environment, a person traveling from one part of the grassland to another is very time consuming as well as difficult.
The wildlife in the grasslands is diversified and plentiful. Since the grasslands are full of grasses and shrubs, countless animals inhabit the grasslands to graze on the dense foliage. Some animals also migrate to the grasslands for temporary lodgings. The resident wildlife in the ...
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...atened with extinction. Their once abundant habitat is being used for cropland, grazing of livestock, and living space, which has put considerable pressure on grassland life. This overgrazing reduces vegetative cover and with the prolonged drought, desert conditions are easily formed and spread. This overgrazing also permits unpalatable species and nonnative weeds. As grazers avoid these, they begin to dominate the area and wipe out the original species. Many once fertile grasslands are being wiped out.
The grasslands are one of the many biomes of our Earth’s biosphere. It is beautiful in it’s own way, and the wildlife that is contained therein help to magnify the beauty of the rich grasslands. These grasslands are teeming with animals and with plants. The soil is very rich and fertile. This, unfortunately, is what draws humans to inhabit the grasslands. Humans are slowly destroying the grasslands, and all of the wildlife contained therein. If the grasslands are destroyed, a whole chunk of the Earth will go with it. So, in closing, you must remember to keep the beautiful grasslands alive. If they go, we will soon be next.
Being raised in the rural, rolling hills of West Virginia provides a childhood that is unforgettable. Being able to see the four different seasons and how they always change so beautifully into each other is beautiful. The hills are sprinkled with timbered forest of many types of trees, accompanied by different types of wild flowers and wild life. Passing through all of the small towns and hollers, you can still see the small farms that have been passed down from generation to generation within the families.
During the time of the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692, more than twenty people died an innocent death. All of those innocent people were accused of one thing, witchcraft. During 1692, in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts many terrible events happened. A group of Puritans lived in Salem during this time. They had come from England, where they were prosecuted because of their religious beliefs. They chose to come live in America and choose their own way to live. They were very strict people, who did not like to act different from others. They were also very simple people who devoted most of their lives to God. Men hunted for food and were ministers. Women worked at home doing chores like sewing, cooking, cleaning, and making clothes. The Puritans were also very superstitious. They believed that the devil would cause people to do bad things on earth by using the people who worshiped him. Witches sent out their specters and harmed others. Puritans believed by putting heavy chains on a witch, that it would hold down their specter. Puritans also believed that by hanging a witch, all the people the witch cast a spell on would be healed. Hysteria took over the town and caused them to believe that their neighbors were practicing witchcraft. If there was a wind storm and a fence was knocked down, people believed that their neighbors used witchcraft to do it. Everyone from ordinary people to the governor’s wife was accused of witchcraft. Even a pregnant woman and the most perfect puritan woman were accused. No one in the small town was safe. As one can see, the chaotic Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692 were caused by superstition, the strict puritan lifestyle, religious beliefs, and hysteria.
The nature in which we live is truly beautiful and something to preserve and treasure. When the Europeans first came to North America, they were immediately in love with the views they encountered. They were interested in wanting to know more about the land, the animals that peeked around, and the people who called it home. Artists such as, John White had heard the tales of what Christopher Columbus had described during his time in North America, which led to them wanting to make their own discoveries (Pohl 140). Everyone had their own opinions and views of the world, but artists were able to capture the natural images and the feeling they had through their paintings (Pohl 140).
Along the far left bank you see a single brick red chimney with a low roof as light wafts of smoke drift toward the left. In the bottom right corner, we see a bit of the bank the perspective is from and bits of grass are also leaning to the left, so one is given the picture of a nice day with at least slight breeze. Towards the center of the painting, you can see large boulders, smoothed, rising out of the river. Far into the distance, past the bank of the river, onto a higher level of the valley area, you see small gathers specks and shapes that represents a small mountain village.
those hills in the paragraph, even though one would think from the title that the first sentence
Topography is the features of land in an area. Those features can include rivers, mountains, lakes, hills, forrests, etc. A White Heron is overflowing with references to the topography of Maine, and more specifically the coast of Maine. The first sentence of Jewett’s A White Heron gives the reader a preview into the appreciation Jewett has for her home state of Maine, “The woods were already filled with shadows one June evening, just before eight o’clock, though a bright sunset still glimmered faintly among the trunks of the trees” (413). While this description isn’t specific to Maine on the surface, it is specific to Jewett’s interpretation of the woods at sunset in Maine, and the beauty of color writing is that each reader will imagine their own sunset based on their own woods in their own region. Jewett was just beginning and her description of the land around her, and as the story progresses the d...
The Salem witch trials of 1692 were grueling trials used to separate the “agents of Satan” from the mortals of the Natural World (Schanzer 11). At the same time as these trials, the Hundred Years war was happening as well. Christian churches struggled to keep control and so everyone in the community was on edge (Kent 14). The Puritans, “an English religious sect hoping to live a simple, God fearing life, and to create Heaven on Earth”, believed that anyone who didn't follow the church’s teachings were in league with the Devil (13). As a result, more and more people were accused of witchcraft (Kent 19). the customs and beliefs of the Puritans in Salem, Massachusetts led to accusations, and eventually the witchcraft trials.
The Salem Witch Trials began during the spring of 1692 in Salem Village (now Danvers), Massachusetts (Salem Witch Trials, 2014). There were over two hundred people accused of practicing witch craft and nineteen were executed for it. Religion was extremely important to the Puritans, regardless of age, and individual differences were frowned upon (Source 4). Puritans were expected to live by a strict moral code. They believed that all sins deserved a punishment and that if something bad happened such as their neighbor having a sick child or a failed crop, they did not help because it was God’s will. It is important to note, that at this time, the Puritans believed that the Devil gave weak people special, evil powers if they pledged their loyalty to him. These people were called witches (Blumberg, 2007).
The year 1692 and early 1693 saw the prosecution and execution of nineteen witches, an old man stoned to death, several accused witchcrafts dying in jail and close to 28 being cast out of the infamous Salem Village (present day Danvers, Massachusetts) on the belief they possessed power to sway people into doing what they wanted (Goodbeer, 2011, p. 2). Early 1692, the daughter; Elizabeth and niece; Abigail Williams of first Salem Village ordained minister; Reverend Parris experienced and had frightening episodes of screaming, uttering voices and throwing things around. Another girl Ann Putnam also experienced the same and under magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hawthorne influence, the girls blamed their conditions on three women: Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne for performing witchcraft on them (Goodbeer, The Salem Witch Hunt , 2011, p. 14).
Many of the American colonists brought with them from Europe a belief in witches and the devil. During the seventeenth century, people were executed for being witches and follower of Satan. Most of these executions were performed in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Mostly all of the accused were women, which makes some modern historians believe that the charges of witchcraft were a way of controlling the women who threatened the power of the men. During the witchcraft trials, hundreds of arrests were made, and some were even put to death on Gallow’s Hill (Karlsen 145). In 1698, the villagers of Salem won the right to establish their own Church. They chose the Reverend Samuel Parris as their minister. Many of the villagers were then sorry that they had done so because of his harsh demands. They then vowed to force him out. There was much pressure surrounding the Parris family. The children of the family would entertain themselves by listening to stories told by Tituba, their slave (National Geographic). January of 1692 is when the mass hysteria of the Salem witch trials first began. The Puritans of this time were very harsh, unyielding, and quick to judge. They condemned innocent women on the basis of intangible evidence, confessions, and such things as "witchmarks" (Hill). As Dorcas Hoar said, "I will speak the truth as long as I live" (Salem Home Page). Nine year old Betty Parris and eleven year old Abigail Williams, the daughter and niece of Reverend Parris, were the first to start to display signs of strange behavior. Some of this behavior included profane screaming, convulsive seizures, trance-like stages, and unexplainable animal-like noises. Shortly after this, other Salem girls began to demonstrate this same behavior. (Salem Home Page). The girls’ torment "could not possibly be Dissembled", stated Cotton Mather (National Geographic). Unable to determine any physical cause for the symptoms and behavior, doctors concluded that the girls were under the influence of Satan. Prayer Services and community fasting were organized by the Reverend Samuel Parris in hopes of relieving the evil forces that supposedly plagued the community. Efforts to expose the witches were also performed. The first three women to be identified as the source of the problem were Tituba, an Indian slave, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osbor...
The biome I have chosen is the temperate rain forest. These types of forest are homes to a few and very amazing species . The temperate rain forest are mainly made of conifer trees. They also receive high rainfall every year. The average amount of rainfall it gets is 140 centimeters, or 55 inches a year. That is a total amount of 4.58333… feet in year-round rainfall.
...e, and a quaint town only five minutes from the national park, there is always something to keep you entertained. As one of the last, nearly intact, temperate ecosystems on Earth it is home to a very unstable, diverse ecosystem. Come to this magnificently beautiful mountain range, and witness all its beauty and serenity first hand.
Jim is an innocent young man, living on the coast of Queensland. In this peaceful town, everybody is happy and at peace with themselves and with nature. The people enjoy the simple pleasures of life - nature, birds, and friendly neighbourly conversations. Their days are filled with peaceful walks in the bush, bird watching and fishing. Jim and his friends especially enjoy the serenity of the sanctuary and the wonders of nature that it holds.
On average millions of hectares of forests are destroyed each year resulting in severe consequences that will affect not only our lifestyle, but also all the animals with which we share our planet. Many species of animals and plants will become extinct and if we continue with the destruction of our forests, earth will be unable to sustain life.
...he surrounding vegetation. Lassen’s environment is rich and beautiful and will remain so as long as it is preserved.