Copyright@ 1980, 1981 by John McPhee

All rights reserved

Published in 1981 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

 

 

Farrar Straus and Giroux

18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

www.fsgbooks.com

 

 

eISBN 9780374708566

First eBook Edition : June 2011

 

 

First paperback edition, 1982

The text of this book originally appeared in The New Yorker, and was developed with the editorial counsel of William Shawn and Robert Bingham.

Geological time scale adapted by Tom Funk from the third edition of F.W.B. van Eysinga’s “Geological Time Table,” Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, P.O. Box 211, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Frontispiece by John Clerk, 1787, courtesy Scottish
Academic Press, Ltd., Edinburgh.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
McPhee, John, 1931—
Basin and Range / John McPhee.
p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-374-10914-1

ISBN-10: 0-374-10914-1
1. Geology—West (U.S.) I. Title

QE79.M28 1981
557.9—dc19

80028679

Paperback ISBN-13: 978-0-374-51690-1
Paperback ISBN-10: 0-374-51690-1