162 PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 



The Red Rocks, the town of Red Rock, the abandoned town of Ros- 

 seau which in 1849 to 1860 was the river "port" for Knoxville and other 

 actual and proposed inland metropoli to the south, the relics of the great 

 stone quarry, the cennetery of the old trading post and the deep trails 

 and paths among the hills leading out to "Poweshiek's village," now to 

 Des Moines and Colfax, all form a region of peculiarly deep and signifi- 

 cant historical interest. 



If visual pleasure and inspiration be matters for the eye alone or for 

 that member augmented by the glass, and whether through lines of 

 vision measured by inches or by leagues toward every point of the 

 compass, and whether in one or others of the seasons of the year or 

 hours of the day or night, Iowa affords no region the equal of this circle 

 of hills so easily accessible to an equal population, if indeed at all. 



Were I concerned that my name should remain esteemed throughout 

 the future and had I my choice of means wherewith to achieve that end, 

 I say deliberately that I would ask that of my public acts the one for 

 remembrance is that of autographing the document that would transmit 

 this area free from axe and fire to our most distant kin. 



THE YELLOW RIVER VALLEY NORTH OF POSTVILLE. 

 By James H. Lees, Geologist. 



Like the Oneota valley, Yellow river valley is a naturalist's paradise. 

 From near its sources north of Postville all the way to its mouth at the 

 Mississippi, it is bordered by increasingly high rocky bluffs which are 

 crowned and covered with a luxuriant mantle of trees. All the lower 

 geological formations of Iowa are represented in its walls the Jordan 

 sandstones, the Oneota dolomites, the St. Peter sandstones and the Ga- 

 lena-Platteville limestone. The whole valley is a natural park filled 

 with interest for the geologist and the botanist and the lover of nature 

 in all its forms. 



One of the mos/t valuable and interesting parts of the valley, from 

 these combined standpoints, is a strip in section three of Post township, 

 five miles north and one mile east of Postville. For a stretch of a mile 

 the steep bluff shows a high mural escarpment of limestone buttressed 

 by a slope of waste material. On this slope and on the upper edge of 

 the bluff capping the limestone wall are abundant trees of the com- 

 moner varieties, but the treasure of (the region, botanically speaking, is 

 the large number of rare balsam firs which are scattered throughout 

 the timber, from base to summit of the bluff. In several places erosion 

 has entirely cut away the slope of waste material and has exposed 

 the bare vertical wall of rock. At one such place a cavity has been hol- 

 lowed out of the wall, like the one in which Moses was hidden ( ! ) 

 and from the base of another there wells out quietly but perennially a 

 great spring whose clear waters keep an open stream throughout the 

 year. There are said to be several other springs at the edge of the 

 river. 



