5;^ 



tweeu the isohyet of 20 inches and that of GO inches, between the isopleth 

 of 250 and that of 8. Indiana sits astride the Cincinnati arch with one 

 foot over the edge of the interior coal field and tlie other on the oil and 

 gas belts, and astride the bonndary of glacial drift and the boundary be- 

 tween summer forest and prairie, with the balance on the right side in 

 both cases. No State hits more exactly the golden mean, its position 

 makes it, like France, a "bridgeland" between north and south, east and 

 west. Tt has been happily called the "midland gap" traversed by many 

 lines of human interest. The mid-parallel of the United States, the 39th. 

 triangulated and leveled by the geodetic sun-ey, crosses it. The centers 

 of cereal production and farm values have ci'ossed it into Illinois. The 

 center of manufactures is in Ohio headed this way. The center of popu- 

 lation has been stuck in Indiana for twenty years and is likely to stay 

 here indefinitely. The National Road, the Wabash and Erie canal and a 

 score of east-west trunk-lines cross it, and ship canals both ways are mor*-, 

 than possibilities. Everything comes our way because it must. The happy 

 mean involves an absence of startling extremes. Few superlatives can be 

 applied to Indiana, but it is not therefore commonplace. Its central posi- 

 tion implies a moderate variety and complexity. In Indiana cold waves 

 are not too cold, hot waves are not too hot, and tornadoes are not very 

 frequent ; yet the climate is by no means monotonous or enervating. There 

 are no volcanoes, geysers, earthtiuakes or glaciers, but the moraines and 

 lakes of tlie north and the hills, knobs, bluffs and caves of the south pro- 

 vide a pleasing variety of landscape beloved by the artist. The strongest 

 contrasts in Indiana are between north and south separated approximately 

 by the boundary of the Wisconsin drift, which also is or was the color 

 line, the mule-horse line, the neckyoke and chain-trace line, the corn-shuck 

 and corn-husk line, the tinpail-bucket line, the "thataway" line and the 

 "right smart" line. In the north the winters are severe enough to compel 

 a proper degree of foresight and care. In the south a family might live 

 as Thomas Lincoln's did, with only a blanket for a door to the cabin. In 

 the days of slavery Indiana was the right of way of the underground 

 railroad, and during the Civil War no northern State was more evenly 

 balanced in its sympathies. In party politics no presidential candidate 

 can count upon it with assurance. Many great men start or stop in Indi- 

 ana ; not so many stay there. To trace the environmental influences which 

 have given rise to a banner crop of oratory, poetry, fiction and humor 



