57 



warmer tliaii it is today. The great e.\i ar.se cf water iii lalces and rivers, 

 aided by tlie increase in temperature, yave rise to excessive moisture. 

 Fostered l)y tlie rich soil and the mild, moist atmosphere, a vast forest 

 of deciduous trees spread over the lai'ger portion of our State. Through 

 this forest and al)out the margins of the lakes and marshes tliere Avan- 

 dered for centuries the mammoth and tlie mastodon, the giant bison and 

 the elk, the tapir and the peccary, the mighty sloth and that king of ro- 

 dents, Cdstofoides oMoensis. Preying upon these and smaller mammals 

 were the great American lion, and tigers and wolves of mammoth size. 

 The bones and teeth of all of these species of extinct animals have been 

 found buried lieneath the surfaces of former bogs and marshes in various 

 portions of the State. It is not improbable that with them was also that 

 higher mammal— man— in all the nakedness of his primitive existence. 



But over this phase in the evolution of the future Indiana there came 

 again a change, for natiu-e knows no stich thing as rest. The great rivers 

 which had liorne south and southwestwardly the floods and debris of the 

 melting glaciers gradually diminished in size and filled but a small por- 

 tion of their former valleys. Extensive shallow lakes in the northwestern 

 part of otir present area gave way to marshes and these, in time, to wet 

 prairies, possessing a rich black soil derived largely from the decay of 

 aquatic vegetation. The climate gradtiallj' grew less moist, more cool. 

 The mammoth, the mastodon and contemporaneotis mammals disappeared, 

 and in their stead came countless thousands of buffalo and deer. With 

 them came, too, that son of Nature— that descendant of the naked barba- 

 rians of centuries before — the noble Red Man. From out of that dark 

 night which hangs forever over all we know or shall know of early 

 America he came — a Avaif flung by the surge of time to these later ages 

 of otir own. 



With the advent of the Red Man the "Indiana of Nature" Avas com- 

 plete, Avas perfect. It possessed that primeval savage beauty of a world 

 unmarrod by man. Lakes, streams, forests, prairies, stored fuel, noble 

 game— all were here. For centuries the Indian lived in peace AA'ithin its^ 

 bounds. The forest yielded him bear and deer— the prairies, Iniffalo and 

 wild foAvl. On the higher ridges, overlooking the larger streams and 

 lakes, he had his principal Aillage sites. Over their placid Avaters he 

 paddled his birch bark canoe. From their depths he sectired Avith spear 

 and hook fishes sufficient to supply his needs; Avhile the skins of mtisk- 

 rat, otter and beaver Avhich he trapped al)out their marshy margins 



