57 



warmer than it is today. The great exi ause of water iii lalces and rivers, 

 aided l)y the increase in temperature, gave rise to excessive moisture. 

 Fostered by the rich soil and the mild, moist atmosphere, a vast forest 

 of deciduous trees spread over the hirger portion of our State. Through 

 this forest and about the margins of the lal^es and marshes there wan- 

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

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

 dents, Cdstoroides oMoensis. Treying 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 beneath 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 nature knows no such thing as rest. The great rivers 

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

 melting glaciers gradually diminished in size and tilled l)ut a small por- 

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

 part of our 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 gradually grew less moist, more cool. 

 The mammoth, the mastodon and contemporaneous 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 waif flung by the surge of time to these later ages 

 of our own. 



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

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

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

 game— all were here. For centuries the Indian lived in peace within it& 

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

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

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

 paddled his birch bark canoe. From their depths he secured with spear 

 and hook fishes sufficient to supply his needs; while the skins of musk- 

 rat, otter and beaver Avhich he trapped about their marshy margins 



