This book is a treasure. Mr. Van Dyke obviously has the soul of a poet, and within his graceful prose he paints vivid and soul-stirring pictures of some of the most beautiful places on earth. He describes in fine detail observations he made on a long trip, on horseback in 1898/99, over, around, and through the lower deserts of Arizona and California. He leaves no stone unturned as he describes the magnificence and beauty of each aspect of the desert, and pulls no punches in his criticism of man's destructive intrusions. To Van Dyke, the play of light and shadow, the star-pocked night skies, the ragged and jagged ranges of mountains, the perfectly adapted plants and animals, the sometimes shifting sands, and the silent river barrier known as the Colorado are each part of the unique sum which is, in its own harsh and angular way, a paradise of color, form, and life: "The Desert."

Speaking as one who has lived on and wandered through this same desert for nearly forty years, I can attest to the accuracy of Van Dyke's physical descriptions and, perhaps more importantly, I can note that I've found here both the magic and the majesty which he so ably describes. Still, this isn't a book for everyone. Those who prefer the gleam of glass towers and the roar of jet planes to flaming sunsets and yapping coyotes, save your money. Van Dyke wrote, "Not in the spots of earth where plenty breeds indolence do we meet with the perfected type. It is in the land of adversity ... that finally emerges the highest manifestation."

He was right, and he leaves us "The Desert" as evidence.

I was given this book for free by someone who had used it for a college course and didn't want it. I couldn't believe the person wanted to throw it away. This book tells all the basics of business law. If you don't know anything about business law, read it. It is a good book for beginners. I know I will keep it for a reference book for a long time. I am starting my own business and I refer to it all the time. Not only does the book tells just about everything you need to know about business law, it gives actual descriptions of court cases to illustrate the points of each section. A very good buy & an excellent reference book!

English being my second language, I found this dictionary to be very usefull during my first college years.In fact, I would call this book in question, i.e., Everyday American English Dictionary : A Basic Dictionary for English Language Learning by Richard A. Spears (Editor), et al , an indespenseable tool for the person interested in the English langauge and especially American English.

My review is that Mr. Richard Smith sure does have an imagination. I thought the book was GREAT. I'm looking forward to reading some of his other material.

Is there another book that might be available soon?

I'm also a strong believer in fate.

** \/ Gina

Several million people fly the Atlantic Ocean each year. Every plane that crosses does so under a system of radio communications, weather forecasting, satellite navigation, and rescue forces that is the inheritance of the first Trans-Atlantic flight, by the US Navy's NC flying boats. Today, the story of the NC Trans-Atlantic Flight Expedition and her crews has been all but lost to the dustbin of history. This review is written in hopes of more people becoming aware of such an historic milestone. Dr. Richard K. Smith, then of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum wrote the best account of this event.

In May of 1919, the US Navy's NC-4 and her crew of six accomplished the first successful Trans-Atlantic flight. It took from May 8 until May 27 to accomplish, some three weeks. Humans had only taken wing, in airplanes, less than twenty years before. A full eight years would pass before Lindbergh made the first solo non-stop.

Four large Navy-Curtiss (NC) flying boats (which land or takeoff from water only), the NC-1, 2, 3, and 4, were designed and constructed by a joint venture of the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company and the US Navy. Due to damage from storm and fire, the NC-2 was salvaged to repair the NC-1, and the remainder became spare parts.

On May 8, 1919, the NC-1, 3, and 4 took off from Naval Air Station Rockaway in Long Island, New York, with Trepassey, in Newfoundland, Canada, the intermediate stop prior to their attempt across the Atlantic. After delays due to the NC-4 having engine trouble near Cape Cod and bad weather at Trepassey, all three aircraft departed on the long flight across on Friday evening, May 16th.

In contrast to the comfort of today, these aircraft flew at a maximum of 90 mph, with the crews exposed to the elements in open cockpits. The part-way stop for fuel, in the Azores, would take more than seventeen hours to reach, with an elapsed flying time for the entire Atlantic crossing of more than twenty-six hours!

Because of engine trouble and inclement weather, two of the aircraft, the NC-1 and 3, landed near the Azores, and were not able to take off again due to a high sea state, with waves cresting above twenty feet. All hands survived from both aircraft, with the NC-3 being sailed and taxied backwards some 250 miles to the Azores, a formidable adventure in its' own right. The NC-1 was lost at sea, her crew rescued by the Greek freighter Ionia.

The NC-4, after what seemed like impossible delays in weather, engine repairs, and other problems, made Lisbon, Portugal on May 27, 1919, being the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic.

The NC-4 was the first in 1919, and for always. Her place in history and the significance of her flight have long been diminished by the public's love of heroics. The NC crews were quickly forgotten as America looked to peace and prosperity after the war. This was best demonstrated by the Congress, which took more than 10 years to appropriate the meager dollars necessary to award the special medals that had been authorized for the crews. Four presidential elections passed before the men had their White House ceremony.

Today, anyone can go to St. John's, Newfoundland, and see a plaque to Alcock and Brown, the second successful crossing. Additionally, there are monuments in Ireland and at Heathrow Airport near London.

The British dedicated a plaque to the NC-4 in Plymouth to commemorate the end of their flight. The Portuguese dedicated a similar memorial in Lisbon. It took until the 50th anniversary for America to place a marker at Rockaway, where it all began, and that was solely due to citizens in that community.

The American aircraft industry, or what's left of it, and the airlines which dominate the North Atlantic air routes, and reap much profit from it, have never seen fit to erect even the most cursory memorial to the NC Transatlantic Expedition in the International Arrivals Building of New York City's Kennedy International Airport. Yet, every flight that takes off from their runway 25L barely is airborne, when it overflies the site of the long gone and forgotten Naval Air Station Rockaway.

The flight of NC-4, its' lessons, and its' blazing of the Atlantic airways are largely unknown today. Americans think Lindbergh made the first crossing; Englishmen say Alcock and Brown. Many at the time thought it not "sporting" that the Navy placed ships along the route to aid navigation, and that the flight took so long to accomplish, but the NC-4 was, and ever shall remain, FIRST ACROSS THE ATLANTIC!

Today, only the families of the heroic crews, and a few historians, recall their names.

I first read the book as a teenager; it inspired me to be a part of Naval Aviation, and the reason I am working on re-creating the flight to honor those men and their achievement.

About the Author:

John R. Bayer is an Aviation Vocational Instructor and Adviser for Meany Magnet School in Seattle, and for King County Work Training's' Opportunity Skyway* program, and serves in the U.S. Naval Reserve.

Mr. Bayer has been an aviation enthusiast his entire life, has formed, and is the Director of, The First Across Organization, a group dedicated to re-creating the NC-4 and her flight before the 90th anniversary in 2009.

In line with much of the new non-fiction surveys and studies, the book, in short essays gives the picture on much information that I have not seen before on the Gold Rush and the aftermath. In particular it gives a reader a chance to compare the Internet investment frenzy with the Gold Mine stocks frenzy in the 1860s & 70s.

The information is concise and beautifully and fascinatingly written.

I think the people that will like this book will be people that like to hunt. This book talks about how people got their deer and what happened when they did. If you don't like to hunt, then you won't really like this book.
One of the best parts of the book is the pictures, and the hunters showing and telling how they got their deer. There were many different hunters and their roles were to hunt deer and kill deer to get big bucks.

This book is the last book in a series of books issued by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. It is a highly useful and interesting book for any Wisconsin history nut.

THIS BOOK IS A GOOD BOOK TO READ TO YOUR FAMILY AND READ TO YOUR FRIENDS AND ASK THEM TO READ IT TO THERE FRIENDS ASK THEM TO READ TO THERE FREINDS AND ASK THEM TO IT TO THERE MOM AND DAD.

In a realm of law firm marketing literature that so often fails to understand the unique qualities of the legal profession and how lawyers relate to their markets, this book goes more deeply and intelligently into the mindset of corporations and how they purchase legal services. Where most marketing books go into the mechanics of the marketing process and miss the point about the subtleties of the process, Smith goes to the core of the process with a kind of sophistication rarely seen in law firm marketing literature. This book is essential to every law firm that wants to understand its markets and how people buy their services.