PARK SITES ALONG DES MOINES VALLEY 



583 



outlook over the Des Moines, "the River of the Road," on one 

 side, and over the great Father of Waters on the other, there 

 are abundant localities which would lend themselves delightfully 

 to the dreams and plans of the park maker. Such a spot is that 

 one well named Buena Vista, about three miles west of Keokuk, 

 where the Des Moines mingles its waters with the great flood of 

 the master stream. Here are roekv hills and forest filled vallevs 



Fig. 191. — The massive wall at Cliffland, below Ottumwa. 



and geode-bearing shales to attract the curious, and here too is 

 the east wall of a half buried abandoned gorge of Mississippi 

 river which stretches northward to Burlington and whose width 

 reaches westward to Sand Prairie (Vincennes) and St. Francis- 

 ville on the Missouri side, eight miles as the crow flies. No rock 

 shows its face in this interval, only sand and clay, which have 

 been fashioned by rains and rushing waters into gullies and 

 miniature gorges, fine examples of the activity of Nature's 

 agencies. I i m^, 



