the natural, the big, the distinctive

The national epic found its monuments, as often as not, in the American landscape, replaced the built environments that it lacked. Niagara Falls mocked the fall line of Europe’s overshot water mills and even more the contrived fountains of Versailles or Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers in the Piazza Navona. The Rockies dwarfed the Alps. The majestic Mississippi lorded over a quaint Rhine. The Great Lakes reduced Europe’s waterscapes to ponds. Redwoods defied Europe’s hoary oaks, grizzly bears its domesticated farmyard fauna, Yellowstone’s geysers the lapdog hot springs of European spas. The natural, the big, the distinctive – all challenged the artifice of ancient and aristocratic societies, while arguing strenuously for a republic of native, once-and-future virtue. 

How the Canyon Became Grand: A Short History by Stephen J. Pyne. Penguin Books. 1998. p.32,33