70 AUTUMN NOTES IN IOWA 



Here also the eloquent and wily Sac chief Keokuk 

 used to hunt and dwell ; the name Keokuk lake still 

 serving to designate an expansion at one point of 

 the waters of Muscatine slough. ' ' From the point 

 of view of the more remote counties of the state, 

 it was near here, also, that the death of Black 

 Hawk occurred, the desecration of his grave, and 

 years later, the destruction of his very bones by 

 accidental fire. 



One may see the pearl fishers of the great River 

 dredging from their peculiar boats as far north at 

 least as McGregor, but the principal button fac- 

 tories in the state are now located here. One reads 

 at intervals in some Iowa paper of the finding of a 

 pearl of great price, either in the Mississippi or in 

 some tributary stream. Such news adds a spice 

 of romance in a commonwealth a satirical writer 

 has declared ^ ' hopelessly sane. ' ' The wild turkeys 

 and deer have vanished ; but now and then a golden 

 eagle or a timber wolf appears to give one a sense 

 of the irreducible wildness of nature, and the 

 pearls wait yet for those who search and can find. 



This section of the state has a floral if not a 

 faunal character somewhat different from that of 

 the northeast counties. Of our large number of 

 native trees, for example, according to Greene the 

 habitat of the white pine, the balsam fir, the Amer- 

 ican yew, and the canoe birch is limited to the 

 northeast portion. Probably comparatively few 

 citizens know that these trees are natives within 



