22 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



reach our myriad several communities, the ultimate sources of 

 power. 



Possibly the legislature might be induced to hasten such 

 investigation as the situation would seem to demand. A year 

 or two since we petitioned the legislature to take steps for the 

 preservation of our lakes. I am not informed that the legisla- 

 ture ever considered the matter at all. But, however willing 

 the legislature, the problem is too far-reaching, too intricate, 

 for their action. What can the legislature do'? Shall the state 

 own the rivers and their banks'? This might avail in Germany 

 but is not once to be thought of under our democratic system. 

 We must reach the communities. The people interested must 

 own the wooded banks and rocky bluffs. Is it not to the inter- 

 est of the city of Des Moines to own the sources of the Coon, 

 the wooded banks and hills that protect its streams in summer? 

 If New York city can own large watersheds of the Croton, and 

 if the state of New York may sustain the Hudson valley by the 

 magnificent Adirondack forest reserve; if the city of Boston 

 may absolutely govern in all problems topographic, all the 

 surrounding country, shall not the towns of Iowa find it to 

 their interest also to protect by every means our meagre 

 streams and scanty woodlands? Nay, may not all the people, 

 locality after locality, be brought to see the true condition of 

 affairs so clearly that the people will themselves, community 

 with community, and neighborhood with neighborhood, com- 

 bine to the accomplishing of a purpose so beneficent, so abso- 

 lutely essential to the continued prosperity of our people? 



Some of us have seen county after county almost across our 

 state pay a heavy assessed tax for the construction of a railway 

 deemed necessary to the country's development. A movement 

 such as here contemplated would be cheap in comparison, as 

 regards the first required outlay, and would return dividends 

 not, as too often in the other case, in vexation, litigation and 

 disappointment, but in ever-increasing profit, pleasure and 

 benediction upon ourselves and our children. The cost would 

 be wholly inconsiderable. 



The people would act to-day if the situation were clearly 

 understood. The question is whether we do the right thing 

 now or wait until the expense shall be increased a hundred-fold. 

 The preservation of springs and streams and forests will one 

 day be undertaken as freely as the building of fences or bridges 

 or barns. When that day comes, Iowa, once so fair in her vir- 



