Three programmes written and narrated by Barry Paine
2: The Rich, High Desert Early European settlers called the heartland of North America a desert. They were wrong. Trees were scarce but the prairie soil was rich.
Where millions of bison once roamed, millions of acres of wheat now sway in the wind. It grows where ancient seas once flooded the continent; where mountain ranges were ground to dust and carried by wind and rivers. Great ice sheets then compressed and ploughed parts of the land into new shapes. The legacy - landmarks such as the Devil's Tower and the White Sands of New Mexico, the Carlsbad Caverns and Niagara Falls. But it was the legacy of soil that made this 'desert' the breadbasket of the world - and the dustbowl of the 1930s. Film editor DAVID BARRETT Directed by LAN CALVERT Producer NED KELLY
Series editor PETER JONES BBC Bristol