PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 151 



pleasure seekers as well as a continual problem regarding their origin, to 

 the more thoughtfully disposed. 



It may seem like reversing the laws of nature to state that Des Moines 

 valley is not so deep below Des Moines as it is above Boone, but such is 

 the case and this fact, coupled with the greater age of this lower portion, 

 accounts for the longer, gentler slopes and less rugged character of the 

 valley. However, this is partly counteracted by the increased number of 

 outcroppingS of resistant bedrock, which afford here and there picturesque 

 scarps and cliffs of pleasing aspect. One of the more notable of these lo- 

 calities is that at Cliffland, between Ottumwa and Eldon. The great 

 vertical wall of sandstone which rises sheer above the flat valley offers 

 with its timber covering a most attractive scene in our land of fields and 

 prairies. Below Eldon the limestones rise high in the hills, and their rug- 

 ged walls gleaming from out their forest cloak or standing green with the 

 moss of ages make pictures which will hang long on memory's chamber 

 walls. The vicinity of the great "oxbow" in the valley at Keosauqua offers 

 one of the best examples of this type of scene. Near Kilbourn at the 

 upper extremity of the great bend, below Mount Zion, at the lower limb, 

 and at various places around the loop these mural escarpments stand at 

 the valley's margin as centers of natural beauty. Similar conditions pre- 

 vail in the vicinity of those bits of rare antique, Bentonsport and Bona- 

 parte, which lie between Keosauqua and Farmington. These different 

 towns offer another sort of interest in that they were sites of the early at- 

 tempts by means of locks and dams to improve river navigation. Some 

 of the old lock walls at Keosauqua are yet standing in fairly good repair. 

 Just below Oroton another massive cliff rises straight from the river's 

 edge, bearing aloft its crown of foliage and affording the traveler another 

 of those gems of quiet beauty which make this part of the valley so at- 

 tractive. An old-time ferry will carry the visitor from Croton to Athens 

 on the Missouri side and will add the spice of variety to the perspective 

 of valley and bluff and forest which he may there gain. In the vicinity of 

 Keokuk, too, the city which is built upon a hill, with its beautiful outlook 

 over the Des Moines, the river road, on one side, and over the great 

 Father of Waters on the other, there are abundant localities which would 

 lend themselves delightfully to the dreams and plans of the park maker. 

 Such a spot is that one well named Buena Vista, about three miles west of 

 Keokuk, where the Des Moines mingles its waters with the great flood of 

 the master stream. Here are rocky Mils and forest-filled valleys and 

 geode-bearing shales to attract the curious, and here too is the east wall 

 of a half buried abandoned gorge of Mississippi river which stretches 

 northward to Burlington and whose width reaches westward to San Prairie 

 (Vincennes) and St. Francisville on the Missouri side, eight miles as the 

 crow flies. No rock shows its face in this interval, only sand and clay, 

 which have been fashioned by rains and rushing waters into gullies and 

 miniature gorges, fine examples of the activity of nature's agencies. 



The foregoing sketches will, it is hoped, have demonstrated the truth- 

 fulness 'of the statement made earlier, that Des Mioines valley offers 

 abundance of sites for public parks and well merits the attention and in- 

 terest of all who are concerned, from whatever point of view, in perpetua- 

 ting the natural beauties of our state. What is needed is intelligent co- 



