of the primeval time, towering high above without a linob or 

 shoot. Their bases were deeply covered with mosses and lich- 

 ens indicating the extremely favorable conditions for vegeta- 

 tion. Their roots were spread over a great area and owing to 

 the wet condition of the ground, they were arched into "knees." 

 The shade of this forest was so dense that only such plants as 

 ferns could prosper. There were many varieties of these and 

 their long and beautiful fronds grew in heavy clusters. A wagon 

 road had been opened up through one part and here the Im- 

 patiens, nettle, and the Pilea had made haste to get rooted in 

 the rich humus. On the edges of this road the hazel and the 

 red bud had become established. This was a beach-maple for- 

 est and these facts illustrate how completely shaded a meso- 

 phytic forest's soil is and also how largely all chances of de- 

 veloping undergrowih is shut out from it. 



There is no doubt but that a generation ago there existed 

 here the densest and heaviest of woods. Old settlers say that 

 even 50-years ago they were able to take out logs and timbers 

 which for size and value rivaled the best of the Michigan for- 

 ests. The natural undergrowth is so heavy in the open that 

 all lines of drainage are clogged and continually threatened 

 with destruction. In some cases these lines have been arti- 

 ficially reopened but only to again suffer destruction by vege- 

 tative obliteration. Lilies, rushes, cat-tails, and zone upon 

 zone of brush and shrub close in on the lake and continually 

 narrow its confines from the sides and raise its bottom by 

 heaps of debris of the dead plants. One would naturally ex- 

 pect that at the outlet of the lake there would be some or even 

 considerable erosion at the present time but there is none that 

 is perceptible. It is a case of a stream that has found its val- 

 ley, not made it. The outlet stream meanders along slowly 

 through dense masses of aquatic and semi-aquatic vegetation, 

 on a slope of exceedingly small gradient, until a point far be- 

 low the upper dam is reached. Here, the erosion setting in 

 from the Tippecanoe is asserting itself and the gradient in- 

 creases very rapidly. It seems that the ordinary course of 

 nature viz; cutting down by erosion and destruction of water 

 bodies by the ascending heads of tributary streams, is here re- 

 versed, and that instead, we have forces acting in the opposite 

 manner. This lake, as far as its water body is concerned, 



10 



