272 PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 



a national park. Especially favored by lavish nature as to river, rock 

 and bluff its charm is never ending and its quiet beauty makes an impress 

 which lingers through the years. The Pictured Rocks, about a mile below 

 M-cGregor, are an unusual phenomenon even in this land of the unusual. 

 A hundred feet or more of St. Peter sandstone, stained with all the browns 

 and reds and yellows and purples of the iron oxides, in contrast with the 

 translucent white of the pure sand, form cliffs and grottoes and nooks of 

 marvelous colors and patterns, set off by groves and lanes of shady trees. 



At Guttenberg and again at the mouth of Turkey river are high nar- 

 row ridges nearly a mile in length which separate the tributary valleys 

 from the valley of the Mississippi. The Guttenberg ridge is over 200 feet 

 high, with a gentle slope to the south, and the Turkey river ridge is 

 nearly as high and terminates in a bold rock tower which stands almost 

 a hundred feet above the rivers on either side. These ridges of course 

 owe their existence to the hard, resisting beds of rock which underlie 

 the country, and which withstand to the last the encroachments of time 

 and the destroying elements. 



And so one might continue this enumeration at great length, but it 

 must be concluded with one or two more examples before passing to 

 other fields. It is well known that in the vicinity of Dubuque there are 

 many caves, which have been formed by the solution of the limestones 

 along cracks and fissures: Some of these have yielded beautiful speci- 

 mens of stalactites and similar deposits, as well as great quantities of 

 lead ore, and the caves themselves are interesting features. I well re- 

 member my disappointment a numbe^ of years ago on going through a cave 

 in the City Railway's park to find that it had been absolutely stripped of 

 all its wonderful stalactitic deposits and transformed into a bare, ugly, 

 electric lighted tunnel. Its beauty was irredeemably gone. Such treat- 

 ment is nothing short of stupid barbarism. Just west of Dubuque, too, 

 are a number of fine examples of erosion pillars which have been carved 

 out of the hard Galena dolomite. Some of these may be seen from the 

 Illinois Central trains standing guard as lone outposts from the main body 

 which has wasted away during the ages. Such remnants bear in them- 

 selves witness that no glacier has invaded the region during the long 

 ages that they have been forming by the slow processes of erosion by the 

 ordinary agents. 



Another form of erosion remnant, most unique in a state like ours and 

 of great interest anywhere', is the natural bridges of Jackson county. 

 These are formed by the incomplete falling in of the roof of an under- 

 ground drainage course, whereby portions are left still spanning the 

 now open valley. They are located about six miles northwest of Maquo- 

 keta and together with a large cavern in the ravine they inake a very 

 popular resort for drives and picnics. 



Outside of the more rugged area of northeastern Iowa there are, of 

 course, many isolated spots of great beauty and charm which are well 

 deserving of the nature lover's attention. Among these may be men- 

 tioned the Devil's Backbone, near the northwest corner of Delaware 

 county, various localities along the Maquoketa and Wapsipinicon rivers, 

 the Palisades of the Cedar, near Mount Vernon, Devil's Lane, near Mus- 

 catine, Indian Spring, near Burlington, and numerous others of equal in- 



