Resulting from an arduous series of six journeys along the two-thousand-mile line that divides East from West, Monte Hartman's perceptive photographs provide the intimate yet dispassionate observations of a person who chose to explore the meanings inherent in the great "empty middle" between our coasts. These images inspired William Kittredge to travel the Meridian himself. His essay, an unblinking yet sensitive musing on what once was and what now remains, offers a poignant counterpoint to Hartman's visual tapestry.