PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA - *.> 



THE BACKBONE OF DELAWARE COUNTY- 

 By James H. Lees, Geologist. 



Just now, when friends of conservation in Iowa are interested in the 

 purchase of the land adjacent to the Backbone, in Delaware county, they 

 may welcome some statements regarding the physical features of a re- 

 gion which is remarkable, alike in its own character and in its relation 

 to the surrounding county. The Backbone region is a rugged island rising 

 out of the gently swelling sea of the Iowa prairie. It is a bit of the 

 "oldland" which elsewhere is hidden by the mantle of the newer glacial 

 drift. Amid its deep valleys and precipitous cliffs one imagines himself, 

 and rightly, in a land of ten thousand centuries. Clambering to the level 

 of the nearby upland he looks over a plain which has been barely 

 touched by the graving tools of Nature, 



Geographically the Backbone is situated almost in the center of Rich- 

 land, the northwestern township of Delaware county. It is thus in close 

 proximity to four counties, Delaware, Buchanan, Fayette and Clayton. 

 Its location makes it easy of access from numerous towns and villages 

 round about Manchester, Strawberry Point, Independence, Oelwein, 

 Fayette, West Union from these and many others it is within easy 

 reach, a feature which adds much to its desirability and utility. As in- 

 dicated before, although it is surrounded by the nearly level or gently 

 rolling prairie so characteristic of Iowa, the Backbone region itself is 

 exceedingly rugged and rough a bit of the driftless area. The Back- 

 bone proper is a long narrow ridge lying within a loop of Maquoketa 

 river, which bends back upon itself to the north for a distance of half a 

 mile or more and then, again making a turn to the southeast, resumes 

 its normal course. Above the waters of the stream the rocky cliffs rise 

 vertically to heights of eighty to a hundred feet, while the more distant 

 hills stand sixty to a hundred feet still higher. The rock walls of the 

 valley are dotted and surmounted by occasional clumps of the rare -white 

 pine or the red cedar, which seem to seek the most barren spots for their 

 foothold. The level flood plain with its carpet of grass and the grateful 

 shade of its forest covering offers a tempting resting place for tourist or 

 camper. If one wishes to climb to the summit of the Backbone, an easy 

 path offers itself or the more venturesome may ascend the "stairway" a 

 great crevice in the rocks, widened through the ages by solution and de- 

 cay, until now it affords a dizzy passage for the clear of head and strong 

 of limb. From long exposure to the forces of Nature the rocks have been 

 carved into towers and columns and battlements and all the picturesque 

 forms which such materials assume under the touch of Time. 



To the student and lover of nature, the history through which a re- 

 gion has passed is always interesting and enlightening. One learns to 

 appreciate more fully scenic features through a knowledge of the pro- 

 cesses and vicissitudes by which they have attained their present forms. 

 So we may well afford to look back into the past and see the evolution of 

 the Backbone with its contiguous territory. We shall see it eons ago as 

 it lay beneath the Silurian sea and was being built up by the slow ac- 

 cumulation of the beds of limestone which now forms its mass and out 

 of which the river gorge has been cut. On the sea floor were multitudes 



