Man and Nature 439 



such as the cypress and tupelo gum may grow in standing 

 water, but Professor Cowles countered by showing that even 

 these hydrophytic or water-loving types are killed by too 

 deep or too long submergence, and that further the timber 

 occupying the disputed ground was composed of oaks, 

 hickories, cottonwoods and other upland types, rather than 

 by the swamp dwellers of the forest. Physiographic evidence 

 likewise supported the story of the trees. The disappearance 

 of a lake is due to one of three causes, evaporation, draining 

 and filling. The rainfall of the lower Mississippi Valley is 

 too great to admit of the first explanation, and the character 

 of the land is such as to preclude the second, leaving the last 

 as the only one of the three explanations possible. But in 

 these bottoms there lie the unburied trunks of trees over- 

 thrown in a great earthquake of a century ago. Had they 

 fallen in lakes, which were subsequently filled in by debris, 

 they must surely have been covered during the disappearance 

 of these lakes. 



Other evidence there was, the details of which need not 

 be elaborated here, but to make a long story short the judge 

 of the district court at Little Rock, gave a verdict against 

 the lumber companies in spite of the fact that some of the 

 "oldest inhabitants" testified at the trial to having actually 

 seen the lakes in question. In the words of Professor Cowles 

 * ' It is safer to believe a tree than a man. ' ' 



Why were the "lakes" originally recorded on the survey? 

 The old surveyors received so much per mile for their sur- 

 veys, and "per" meant more for their purse when lake 

 shores were surveyed because of the greater difficulties in- 

 volved in such surveying. Hence many of the old maps 

 are probably more or less "scraps of paper" and not repre- 

 sentations of fact. 



In the preceding pages we have hastily sketched a few of 

 the achievements and opportunities of economic biology in 

 America. Much has of necessity been passed by, but enough 

 has been given to illustrate the indispensable place which 

 biology has in our economic structure. 



