A Dune Idyl. 



"You must love the crust of the earth on which 

 you dwell more than the sweet crusts of any bread 

 or cake; you must be able to extract nutriment out 

 of a sand heap." Thoreau. 



But few of the citizens of Indiana know that 

 within the bounds of their State is a typical 

 desert region a region where grass grows not at 

 all or but sparingly where for miles on miles 

 stretch unfenced plains, vales and hills, covered 

 with a loose gray sand. Within this area there 

 is little sustenance for plant or animal no 

 water to quench one's thirst. Eugged and 

 rough, desolate and forbidding to one who is 

 accustomed to the green fields of central Indi- 

 ana, there it lies, a desert waste, gray, loose, 

 wandering. Over its surface the wind is master. 

 The breeze beckoneth and it obeys. J Tis here 

 to-day, there to-morrow, and gone the day after. 

 The lake has vomited forth these sands and, at 

 times, when the breeze blows from the right 

 quarter, back they go into the maw which gave 

 them birth. 



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