180 PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 



The lakes of Iowa have been neglected. They are the property of the 

 state and like any piece of public property left untended, our lakes have 

 been abused. Only recently has it been thought worth while to care 

 for native groves to protect the shores from defilement, and clear the 

 waters of obstructions and erosion. 



But today the case is different. The lakes are coming into their own. 

 Cottages that cost thousands rise on wooded points, commodious steam- 

 boats pass from pier to pier, while sailboats and launches by the hundred 

 enliven the landscape at close of every summer day. 



Our lakes lack the background of snow-capped mountains, else we had 

 Switzerland or Alberta; but we do have winding shore lines and great 

 variety of hill and valley. "High points" rise on every side, conspicuous 

 landmarks to the traveler. From any one of these the prairie landscape 

 is beautiful in the extreme. The "highest point in Iowa," for instance, 

 affords a view of the whole lake system, and prairie villages dot the plain 

 over a circle whose radius is fifteen or twenty miles. On these high 

 points and shore lands even in mid-summer cool airs are stirring all day 

 long; there are not more delightful places the country over. 



Nor are these Iowa lakes without wonderful scientific interest. How 

 came they where they are? What agency tossed the prairie into a land- 

 scape of tumultous hills on every side? What erosion deepened Okoboji 

 so that great pike and bass hide in the cool recesses of the rocks a 

 hundred feet below the shining surface of the crystal water water green 

 as Lake Michigan? What energy rip-rapped these shores for rods to- 

 gether with granite walls of stone brought from all the natural northern 

 quarries of the world? 



So attractive are these lakes to men of science -that the university 

 alumni have established a research station on the western shore-line near 

 the "highest point" and here university professors offer lecture courses 

 year by year to tell the natural history of the region. These courses are 

 open to students in limited number, who camp on the hillsides above the 

 lake and spend some weeks investigating physical geography, botany, 

 geology, zoology and competent judges say there is no opportunity so 

 fine for such research in all the continent. Here is the noblest illustra- 

 tion of the dynamics of the glacier, of pure glacial geology to be found 

 in all the United States. Indeed, northern Iowa is classic ground for 

 the geologists of the world. Hereafter the surface geology of our 

 planet may not be intelligently discussed anywhere without reference 

 to Iowa and the facts for which our group of lakes makes statement to t 

 all whose choose to read. 



The botanist finds about the lakes, such is the strange topography 

 here, the most varied vegetation; aquatic plants bloom in scores of 

 species everywhere in lake, in pool, in marsh and shallow; plants that 

 represent the dry western plains occur upon the wind-swept hilltops and 

 the flora of all the northern prairie occupies the successive levels be- 

 tween lake and mesa. 



As the flora varies, so changes the fauna, so that we have animal life 

 of every sort; life adapted to deep fresh water, and life where water 

 there is none, save as it fails in rain but abides .not. 



