130 PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 



"Glacial moraine," geologists say; 



"Left by the last ice invasion, 

 Youngest addition of pebbles and clay, 



Ground by a slow rock-abrasion." 



Ages ago methinks I see 



Rivers of ice on the prairie 



Mills of the gods and this is the debris 

 Humped like a huge dromedary. 



Iowa's plains were leveled for man, 

 Smoothed and made fit for his using, 



When in Go.d,'s wise, mysterious plan, 

 Landmarks were left of His choosing. 



Old without doubt but thou art young, 

 Timed by the clock of world-making; 



Absent, unborn when the stars were hung, 

 Heard not old Earth's primal quaking. 



Centuries come and centuries go, 

 Speechless thou standest, beholding 



Changes which only centuries know, 

 Changes of race and race-molding. 



Nations are born, empires decay, 



States are redeemed from the savage 



Such changes are the work of a day 

 Measured by thee and time's ravage. 



Thou didst stand guard when the Redman came, 

 Saw his rude hut, his chaste wooing; 



Pastur'd the wild swift-footed game, 

 Witness'd the hunter pursuing. 



Beacon wert thou to early guides 



, Crossing these wild tractless regions? 



Ah, beacon still, and one that abides, 

 Gone are the brave dusky legions. 



Hunters and warriors have pass'd on, 

 Pass'd to the wierd realms of shadows, 



Paler-faced tribes came west with the dawn 

 Searching for new Eldorados. 



Men digging wealth from the vale and plain 

 Viewed from this Knob, bare and ancient 



Likewise shall pass, but thou wilt remain, 

 Preaching the truth that we're transient. 



GITCHIE MANITO PARK. 



The extreme northwestern corner of Iowa is a part of a larger area 

 which is one of the beauty spots of the North American continent. It 

 possesses great interest historically, prehistorically, scientifically, fiction- 

 ally. Twenty acres in the northwest quarter of section 11, (Tp. 100 N.. 

 R. XLIX W.) would be representative of 50 square miles. 



Nowhere perhaps on the face of our globe does there exist a bit of 

 landscape more picturesque, more unexpectedly novel, or more curiously 



