50 PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 



Speaking of public parks in country as well as city, Prof. Thos. H. 

 Macbride, at one time president of the Iowa State University, made the 

 following reference to the "Backbone": 



"The country people need the park just as much as the town folk and 

 if they ask for it they will get it. There are plenty of bits of natural 

 scenery and all that is needed is intelligent care and devotion to public 

 use. Take for instance the Backbone in Delaware County, a long narrow 

 ridge of limestone rock, ninety feet in height, washed on three sides by 

 the clear waters and its crest crowned with a grove of native pines, be- 

 neath whose shadows rise perennial springs what more can you wish? 



"Chicago covets her bit of sand yonder; for the Backbone, Chicago 

 would pay a million dollars, and would make it cost two millions more 

 all for the pleasure of her people; and yet the good people of Delaware 

 and Buchanan counties have not yet found out a way to preserve for 

 themselves and their children this lovely natural park." 



Doubtless there are writers who could better describe this Delaware 

 county natural park than Samuel Calvin, but doubtless no one ever did. 

 Here is an extract from a quite lengthy illustrated article that was writ- 

 ten by him and published in the July, 1896 number of the Midland 

 Monthly: 



"The 'Backbone' is a fragment of unique topography that, like the 

 Driftless Area, preserve the characteristics of the pre-glacial surface of 

 the State. In fact, it is itself a driftless area, though rather small. The 

 regions all around it are deeply covered with glacial deposits, but no 

 drift is found upon the ridge or in the adjacent valleys. The integrity of 

 the limestone towers and other erosive forms that would easily be toppled 

 over are inconsistent with movements of glacier ice. The old ice sheet, 

 for some reason, failed to spread its mantle of detritus over this region, 

 and it is to this failure that citizens of the fertile midland are indebted 

 for the preservation of the features on which depends its strange power 

 of exciting in all intelligent visitors the sense of surprised delight. The 

 beauty, the seclusion, the attractiveness of the place, are certain to be 

 appreciated more and more as the years go by, provided short-sighted, 

 unaesthetic avarice does not transform its forest land into pastures, or 

 does not attempt to "improve" it for the sake of converting it into a 

 profitable summer resort. If it can only be let alone, it will remain a 

 source of purest pleasure, to be particularly enjoyed by the tired worker, 

 who has learned that occasional outings, where one may have direct con- 

 tact with woods and ricks as Narute left them, are the most effective 

 means for relaxation from the mental strain consequent on the condi- 

 tions under which work of every kind must now be performed. These 

 weather-beaten cliffs, the difficult and lonely paths, the odorous pines in 

 which the breezes make perpetual music, tend to refresh and reinvigorate 

 both mind and body, provided only, one is in sympathy with Nature un- 

 improved by art, modestly picturesque." 



