The Earth before Men Came 19 



great natural parks, this will be a better help. In these 

 parks everything remains just as Nature made it. There 

 the animals, birds, and plants are free to live their lives un- 

 molested. Is it not a good thing that our government has 

 been wise enough to have largq tracts of land left in just 

 the condition in which the whole country was when our an- 

 cestors first came ? 



We will think of our whole land, then, as a great wild 

 park, rich in all kinds of animal and plant life. It was not 

 an altogether happy family that lived in this park, for all 

 were struggling for food, drink, and sunshine. But as 

 none were possessed of such deadly weapons as those of 

 civilized man, no one kind of aniinal was able to kill off 

 all of any other kind. 



Neither the Indians in their wigwams, nor the wild ani- 

 mals in their lairs, nor the birds singing in the trees, nor the 

 ducks quacking in the marshes dreamed of the change that 

 was coming to their homes. They did not dream of civilized 

 man with his terrible weapons and his many needs, who was 

 to change the whole appearance of the country and nearly 

 or quite exterminate many of them. 



The life of the Indians was almost as simple as that of the 

 lower animals. Their clothing required little care. Their 

 homes were easily made. Some of them had learned to 

 cultivate the soil, but they depended mainly upon food ob- 

 tained by hunting, and such roots, berries, and nuts as the 

 women could collect. If we could have looked down on our' 

 land as the bird does, we should have seen little sign of 

 human inhabitants. There were no roads or bridges, and 

 only indistinct trails led from one village to another. 



In the far Southwest there were people quite different 



